The Multicultural Classroom: Learning from Australian First Nations Perspectives. Jasmin Peskoller

of certain factors in connection with teaching and learning, and to adapt their strategies accordingly to support both language learning and intercultural learning (2009, 210). Subsequently, Windle (2009, 106–107) illustrates the following modes of behavior required from instructors in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms. First, teachers need to disregard the common misconception that bilingualism is the primary cause of low academic achievement. Additionally, they need to design effective approaches to teaching and learning while striving to comprehend the individual student’s identity and cultural framework. Doing so can help build a solid foundation of mutual understanding and a connection between students and teachers.

      Building on Windle’s (2009) plea, however, Ladson-Billings (2017, 145) has underscored the predominantly defective understanding of teachers’ own backgrounds and identities as an obstacle. Linking this identified shortcoming with the fundamental objectives of education, Watkins et al. (2016, 62) argue the following:

      With schools as important sites in which values and understandings around cultural diversity are formed, it is imperative that teachers possess the necessary professional capacities to assist students in making sense of the multicultural society in which they live ensuring a sense of civic belonging and social inclusion that provide the basis for an equitable and fair polity.

      Specifically, Ladson-Billings (2017, 145) argues that learners need to develop a multicultural perspective through schooling which entails that students “broaden their cultural repertoires so that they can operate more easily in a world that is globally interconnected.” Therefore, Boon and Lewthwaite (2016, 468) affirm that teaching staff at educational institutions is required to be culturally competent and needs to possess “the knowledge and skills to effectively teach diverse groups of students.”

      Specifically investigating contexts in which Standard English is the dominant linguistic variety, Ball and Bernhardt (2012, 209) suggest that “[a] first step that schools […] can take is to acknowledge the validity of children’s particular English dialect. This acknowledgement can promote children’s sense of being capable learners and of belonging in the mainstream school setting.” In conclusion, Partington (2003, 42) states,

      School should be a sanctuary from difficulties experienced outside the school and it should be a place where they [students] can be encouraged to succeed and take advantage of opportunities for education and training. For this to happen, however, schools need to change. This change can only occur through more effective education of teachers.

3.2 Implementing Bilingual and Bicultural Approaches

      Generally, a variety of definitions and models of bilingual education and a seemingly equally extensive number of ways for classifying and grouping them exist in the field. Fundamentally, Baker (2011) and Grosjean (2010) emphasize the need for a distinction to be made between approaches in which bilingualism is encouraged and those in which a monolingual classroom is targeted (Baker 2011, 207; Grosjean 2010, 230–235). Thus, a distinction can be made between strong and weak forms of bilingual education, which can be differentiated from monolingual forms of education (Baker & Wright 2017, 198ff.); similarly, García (2009, 146–153) makes use of the terms monoglossic and heteroglossic for purposes of differentiation. A further distinction relates to the goals of bilingual education. The three most common types of bilingual education and their respective objectives are listed in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Aims of Bilingual Education Models5

      Adding to this concise overview of types of bilingual education models, Table 1 depicts an extract from Baker’s comprehensive typology of bilingual education to exemplify one way of classifying the various existing approaches to, and sub-branches of, bilingual education.

Monolingual Forms of Education
Type of Program	Typical Type of Child	Language of the Classroom	Societal and Educational Aim	Aim in Language Outcome
Mainstreaming / Submersion	Language Minority	Majority Language	Assimilation	Monolingualism
Weak Forms of Bilingual Education
Type of Program	Typical Type of Child	Language of the Classroom	Societal and Educational Aim	Aim in Language Outcome
Transitional	Language Minority	Moves from minority to majority language	Assimilation/ Subtractive	Relative Monolingualism
Mainstream (with [Foreign] Language Teaching)	Language Majority	Majority language with second/foreign language lessons	Limited Enrichment	Limited Bilingualism
Strong Forms of Bilingual Education
Type of Program	Typical Type of Child	Language of the Classroom	Societal and Educational Aim	Aim in Language Outcome
Immersion	Language Majority	Bilingual with initial emphasis on L2	Pluralism and Enrichment	Bilingualism & Biliteracy
Maintenance/ Heritage Language	Language Minority	Bilingual with emphasis on L1	Maintenance, Pluralism and Enrichment	Bilingualism & Biliteracy
Two Way/Dual Language	Mixed Language Minority & Majority	Minority & Majority	Maintenance, Pluralism and Enrichment.	Bilingualism & Biliteracy
Mainstream Bilingual	Language Majority	Two Majority Languages	Maintenance, Pluralism and Enrichment.	Bilingualism

Table 1: A Typology of Bilingual Education6

      While weak forms of bilingual education include the risk of fostering a subtractive form of bilingualism (see Figure 2), strong forms, on the contrary, encourage additive bilingualism. Connecting the concepts of language and culture, Baker (2011, 249) states that “bilingual education ideally develops a broader enculturation, a more sensitive view of different creeds and cultures” and it “will usually deepen an engagement with the cultures associated with the languages, fostering a sympathetic understanding of differences”.

      Two approaches that are classified as strong forms of bilingual education in the typology presented in Table