ABSTRACT
The famous words of the Plowden Report (1967) — ‘At the heart of the educational process lies the child’ —remain powerful and relevant, albeit tempered now by a stress on skills and assessment. Bilingual education reflects this balance. Valuing and building on mother tongue derives from a child-centred philosophy, but is also in keeping with the notion of skill development. Accordingly, this chapter analyses the English learning process experienced by one young boy, in the belief that we can discover as much, if not more, by such scrutiny, as by many a larger survey.
