INTRODUCTION
The fact that 23 % of the population in Australia speaks a language other than English at home, an increase of 2 % over the previous census, indicates that the significance of maintaining the mother tongue of the ethnic groups in Australian society is high.( Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2011, Clyne 2005). Although Australia is linguistically diverse, multilingualism has not always been effectively promoted in the educational system( Clark, 2006; Clyne 2005). The focus on literacy skills has been directed towards developing knowledge and skills predominantly in the English language( Lo Bianco, 2003). Bilingualism and language maintenance are not always seen as contributing factors in acquiring literacy in the second language, which, in this case, is English.( de Courcy, 2006, 2007; Molyneux, 2009; Cross, 2012)
Baker( 2006) maintains that to achieve bilingualism, biliteracy and biculturalism, strong forms of bilingual education, such as immersion or two-way bilingual programs should be implemented. A bilingual program is identified as a specific type of language program where teaching and learning of the other areas of the curriculum such as social studies or mathematics is implemented via the medium of a second language. At present there are several bilingual schools in Victoria and even though the aim of these programs is to provide learners with the second language and culture, they vary in the way they are structured, according to the time allocated for the language and the particular subjects studied( Truckenbrodt & de Courcy, 2002). Some, such as Camberwell Primary School, involve all children enrolled at the school in a French bilingual program, where they study their Mathematics and part of the literacy block in French( de Courcy & Burston, 2000; de Courcy, Burston & Warren, 1999). Others, such as Abbotsford and Richmond West Primary Schools, involve children from heritage languages( e. g. Chinese) in the maintenance of these languages through the study of some subject areas through that language( Elder & Liem, 2000a, 2000b).
This research focuses on a Macedonian heritage bilingual program where one of the authors( Smilevska) teaches in her mother tongue, Macedonian. The children in the program are first language speakers of Macedonian, who are acquiring literacy in Macedonian and in English. This paper gives us the important perspective of a teacher working in a bilingual program, so as to inform discussion of bilingual programs and transfer of literacy skills.
Currently, Macedonian is in the top ten community languages in Melbourne, where the largest concentration of Macedonian speakers( 42.9 per cent) in Australia reside( Clyne & Kipp, 2002). Macedonians’ strong expression of identity through language was
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