Osvita: Ukrainian Bilingual Education

P.J. Hammel is a professor of Education at the University of
Saskatchewan.

It is appropriate that the title of this work is displayed in two languages (“Osvita,” in Ukrainian, means “education”); it is a graphic indication that the work appeals particularly to those who are interested in bilingual education and are themselves bilingual. This work consists of the “proceedings of the first conference in Canada on research into Ukrainian-language education, especially English-Ukrainian bilingual education.” Its purpose is to help teachers in English-Ukrainian bilingual programs “solve the avalanche of problems that affects every aspect of the educational process….”

Each of the 18 papers purports to report research in such a manner that the classroom teacher in the bilingual program may benefit. Four of the reports deal specifically with the Ukrainian language, its forms, and its structures; here the reader needs to be fluent in Ukrainian. Five reports deal with Ukrainian language immersion programs: the effects of the immersion program, parental expectations of the program, the effects of language use in the home, the effects of intermarriage, and the politics of initiating such programs. In addition, three reports deal with language and multiculturalism and two with characteristics of teachers in bilingual immersion programs; and individual reports deal with the use of story theatre in language teaching, the influence of television, evaluation of the Edmonton Catholic Schools immersion programs, and the future of the bilingual movement in general.

Though many tables are included and almost all reports append bibliographies, the reports themselves are uneven. They are uneven in their descriptions of research methods; they are uneven in their analysis of research; and they are uneven, and probably least successful, in denying practical applications for the classroom teacher. This is still, however, one of the few aids available to English-Ukrainian bilingual teachers; educators may, therefore, wish to read this work to gain whatever practical assistance they can.