Abstract
Meeting the educational needs of a linguistically diverse population is a challenge for many countries. This is a particular challenge for New Zealand (NZ) which, until the 1980s, had a White Immigration Policy. The last 30 years have seen NZ become a full member of the Asia Pacific Region and move from being a mostly homogenous society to one of the most heterogeneous. This article explores the historical context of education and migration and current initiatives for inclusive academic language teaching (IALT) in NZ. IALT is a teacher-development approach recently developed for multilingual Europe by the European Core Curriculum for Mainstreamed Second Language Teacher Education. The approach rests on principles of acknowledgement of first language and culture, inclusivity and teachers having specialized knowledge of the academic language requirements of their subjects. This analysis seeks to show that knowledge, policy and practices that were once at the margins of the education system must now be central and will benefit all students, particularly those from diverse backgrounds.
Acknowledgements
The author is indebted to Charlotte Franson and Yvonne Foley for their work in inclusive academic language teaching and to the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments in the review process. The author also wishes to express her warm thanks to the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies for providing permission to use their material in Table 1.
Notes
1. Ministry of Education ESOL Funded Students: Statistical Information 2011, Period 1.