ABSTRACT
In today’s classrooms, teachers are faced with increasingly challenging pressures to assess, test and measure academic achievements, yet bilingualism may not feature highly as one of those achievements. As Wrigley (2000) points out, ‘the ability to understand, communicate and think in two or more languages is in itself a great achievement’. Many bilingual learners achieve well academically although it is recognised that particular groups still underperform. Garcia’s 3 more global, pluralistic and twenty-fi rst-century perspective of bilingualism posits ‘that bilingual education is the only way to educate children in the twenty-fi rst century’.
