An ecological approach to researching biliteracy development of Indonesian bilingual children in Australian social contexts

This dissertation reports a study of how literacy in English language impacts on the process and experience of acquiring literacy in an Indonesian language within an ecological approach to language development in the three intersecting of Australian social context: schools, homes, and community. The philosophical base of this study is the concept of language ecology utilising Honberger‟s proposal „the continua of biliteracy (1989, 2002, 2003 & 2004) and Cummins‟ hypothesis of simultaneously bilingual child learning both languages (1984a, 1996). As no longitudinal study of biliteracy development in English and Indonesian has been conducted to date, this particular research is the first investigation of this process and provides an opportunity, specifically, to explore individual differences related to relative timing of biliteracy acquisition as well as age, personality, gender and experiences. Not only does this study provide insights that can challenge current educational policy in Indonesia, which discourages childhood bilingualism in the formal educational system, but also provide invaluable understandings of the learning processes in biliteracy for classroom teachers, parents and community members.