Bilingualism and biliteracy : the case of Palestinian learners of English

Abstract EN

The aim of this paper is to examine the extent Palestinian learners are bilingual and biliterate of Arabic and English languages.

The study examined some research papers by English graduating students at An-Najah National University to assess the dimensions of bilingualism by Baker (2011) and the continua of biliteracy according to Hornberger (1989, 2000, 2003).

I concluded that English language is practiced in a rather mono-cultural setting, and that makes it more additive or elective.

By situating the graduates' research papers across the continua of biliteracy, it was found that Palestinian learners are not biliterate and their operation of the notions of culture and context in monolingual settings was not sufficient to engage in communication cross-culturally or study abroad contexts