Learning Geography Bilingually

Abstract

A concern with the role of the ‘Other’ in geography in higher education has led to work on the incorporation of marginalized social groups into learning contexts. Recently some authors have discussed the role of language in teaching, and in particular the dominant role of the English language in marginalizing non‐Anglophonic students and subject matter. In this paper an empirical case study of the experiences of bilingual students at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth is developed. This research provides an account of the role of language in bilingual students' engagements with geography, and addresses the practicalities and the politics of enabling students with a diversity of linguistic skills to become full citizens of their geographical education.

Keywords:

• Language
• bilingualism
• ‘Othering’
• learning
• Wales

Notes

Correspondence address: Luke Desforges, Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion SY23 3DB, UK. Email: [email protected]

The European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students (ERASMUS) is a programme established in 1987 to enable undergraduate students to take part in academic exchanges between their university and other European higher education institutions.

The actual numbers of Welsh overseas migrants are extremely difficult to ascertain. The lack of consensus is characterized by the debate between Thomas (e.g. 1959), who claimed that the level of Welsh overseas emigration was relatively low, and Baines (1985), who has argued that ‘vast emigrations’ took place from Wales to England and overseas.