Bilingual Education: Teaching Children in Two Languages

The renewed interest in bilingual education which began in other countries in the mid 1960s has developed only slowly in New Zealand. In 1976 the Marshall Committee expressed the view that the time was already overdue for the setting up, in carefully selected schools, of bilingual Maori-English programmes from the primary stages. Such a beginning has now been made at Ruatoki and other programmes are being planned. To assist with public discussion of such developments the NZCER was happy to be able to bring Carl Dodson to New Zealand as the sixth McKenzie Travelling Lecturer. His lectures and seminars were very stimulating and encouraging to those vitally interested in bilingual education, especially since he was able to point to the success of the bilingual programme in Wales where the children of English-speaking parents have, with their parents encouragement, become Welsh-speakers at no detriment to their other studies, and with great gains in their cultural and social education. Carl Dodson was closely associated with the projects set up to foster bilingual education in Wales. He was responsible for the evaluation of the primary schools project and he directed the secondary schools project. He is now directing the preparation of materials and resources, and has written several books on bilingual methods.