Multicultural Education: A Canadian Perspective.

This paper presents a discussion of multicultural policies in Canada, implications for teachers and schools, multicultural resources, and heritage language education. A case study of an elementary school in North York, a borough of metropolitan Toronto (Ontario, Canada), illustrates the positive effects that can accrue when a multicultural approach to teaching is adapted. The practice of heritage language instruction in Canada is addressed and focuses on the problems and attempted solutions in Ontario where heritage language teaching is integrated into the regular curriculum. This means that core curriculum subjects will be taught in the students' native language in order to best ensure success of immigrant students later in the educational system, and that such language instruction is available not only to specific ethnic groups but to all children who wish to take avantage of extra language instruction. In order to prepare qualified teachers competent in an official language (French or English) as well as in heritage languages and comfortable in a multicultural framework, teacher training programs need to provide up-to-date techniques and theories of second language teaching. (LL)