ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how the multilingualism-as-a-resource orientation plays itself out in the context of dual language education programs. R. Ruiz proposed a language-as-resource orientation to guide language policy and educational decision-making for minority language speakers. The model of strict separation of language is incongruent, with the understandings of bi/multilingualism as a dynamic phenomenon where an individuals’ different languages intersect and connect. In the early days of Two-way bilingual education programs, students were typically described in terms of “native speakers of a partner language” and “native speakers of English” and/or as “Hispanic” or “Latino” students and “Anglo” or “EuroAmerican” students. Purposeful planning of language distribution across a program is referred to as “macro-alternation”. Strict language separation counters the potential for learning and engagement afforded by bi/multilingual practices. The language-as-problem orientation considers the speaking of languages other than the dominant language as a deficit to be overcome if individuals are to be economically, politically successful, and socially integrated into mainstream society.
