Cognitive-academic language proficiency and language acquisition in bilingual instruction : with an outlook on a university project in Albania

Abstract

Based on the concepts of bilingual education of Cummins, this paper explores the contribution of cognitive-academic language proficiency to the acquisition of a second language in instructional contexts. Cummins' threshold hypothesis is interpreted not as referring to an unspecified level of language competence presupposed for positive development in bilingual instructional contexts but as referring to an adequate level of cognitive-academic proficiency that allows sufficient orientation in the proceedings a/the classroom. The analysis of a sample text taken from a textbook for fourth grade illustrates this paint and leads to a discussion of consequences for the language classroom. In the last part of the paper educational practices in Albania are considered in this context." A review of a joint project undertaken by the University of Graz in Austria and the University of Shkoder in Albania, shows that cognitive academic proficiency is along with situational and motivational factors a key element determining success in educational contexts, where a foreign language - in this case German - is used as a language of instruction.