ABSTRACT
Ethnic linguistic minorities mean sections of a given population, which share a distinctive phenotypic, cultural and linguistic heritage. A distinction must be made between a native minority and an immigrant community. In contrast to the dominant English speaking white Anglo-Saxon indigenous population, new minority ethnic arrivals in Britain bring with them a host of different cultural, religious and linguistic traditions. Understanding how British society responds to the linguistic needs of the country's non-English speaking population will shed some light on the issues. It will also afford us an insight into the values inherently attached both to the dominant English-speaking Anglo-Saxon tradition and its non-English-speaking minority counterparts. From the outset the task of defining what second language education amounts to appears problematic, with various existing pedagogical approaches including denominations such as English as a Second Language tuition, English for Speakers of Other Languages, bilingual education and language immersion programmes, among others.
