ABSTRACT
Although I don't propose to describe models of bilingual education in detail, a short discussion of the nature of bilingual education is warranted. 1 Bilingual education can take many forms and is therefore difficult to define. However, all programmes share one distinctive feature, namely they recognise the student's knowledge of at least two languages. The actual realisation of bilingual education can vary from first language and/or second language teaching programmes to instruction in more than one language. Although bilingual education always takes more than one language into account, it does not necessarily aim at fostering bilingualism. On the contrary, the covert objective of many bilingual education programmes is monolin-gualism. As the learner becomes more efficient in the second language, the first language is phased out. In such programmes, bilingual education is used as a technique to enable the learner to make the transition from the first to the second language more effectively. Or conversely, some bilingual education programmes are overtly supportive of ethnic identity and language and aim at drastically reducing the second language component of the curriculum.
