ABSTRACT
Professional expectations and assessment criteria based on unfounded assumptions are racist in effect if they damage or disadvantage Black and Asian bilingual pupils' educational opportunities and career prospects, or if they favour white monolingual pupils as a result. While dyslexia may offer a way of assessing children who encounter specific difficulties, it offers too restricted a view for bilingual learners whose learning experience is dependent on many contexts as well as interacting effects. Equally the emotional dimension must also be considered. Ellis cites studies which have examined how 'individual learner differences' affect second-language acquisition and found evidence that such feelings may facilitate or inhibit learning. Priority action is to engage expertise and independent mechanisms for objective process-monitoring. This should always involve Black and Asian bilingual professionals who have the relevant skills and are given the legitimacy to lead on practice, in order to end the kind of 'inappropriate' assessment which uses labels simplistically whilst ignoring crucial bilingual/cultural contexts.
