Asian EFL Journal: English Language Teaching and Research Articles

May 2005 Conference Proceedings

Speech Title

Bilingualism and Aspects of Competence as a Holistic Concept.

Address

Dr. Roger Nunn

Profile

Roger Nunn did his post-graduate study at the Centre for Applied Language Studies at the University of Reading in England where he obtained an MA and a PhD. He has taught various combinations of language, culture and literature since 1976 in England, Germany, Ethiopia, Qatar and Japan. He has double British/French nationality, has lived in a bilingual family for 29 years and worked in multicultural contexts outside Europe for 24 years. He is currently a Professor at Kochi University where he has taught in the Department of International Studies since 1995. His main academic interests are curriculum development across cultures, pragmatics, intercultural and international communication, classroom discourse and the applications of discourse and cultural analysis to the teaching of language and the reading of literature.

Abstract

Bilingualism and Aspects of Competence as a Holistic Concept.

This paper discusses ‘competence’ in relation to three kinds of bilingual education. Ten interlocking aspects of a holistic description of ‘competence’ will be outlined and then discussed in relation to three kinds of bilingual education programme: “immersion”, “maintenance” (learning the language of others and achieving in both languages) and “transitional” (replacing the mother tongue with the target language) and also in relation to recent discussion of 'bilingualism' when English is viewed as an International language. The need for “immersion” in the Japanese University context will be briefly discussed in this respect.