Improving teaching and learning in the bilingual classrooms

In this book, we share our understandings of teaching and learning in bilingual classrooms that we have developed through a collaborative action research study.Three academics from a Sri Lankan university collaborated with teachers in bilingual classrooms in a selected school to improve teaching and learning during a period of nine months. Our collaborating teacher-researchers describe and reflect upon the challenges that they faced in the school and classrooms in implementing bilingual education and the success or otherwise of their chosen strategies in dealing with them. Intricacies arising from students insufficient exposure to their second language and L2 skills as well as their parents' inability to support student learning at home, make the teachers search for more imaginative solutions and to adopt more learner-centred strategies. The collaboration had been a mutually beneficial experience to the university and teacher collaborators for their professional learning while the students achieved many positive outcomes.