Abstract
In recent times, the bilingual educational model has become recognized as a solidly successful basis of instruction worldwide. Research has proven that bilingualism carries significant educational and cultural benefits for all learners. Education in the UAE has gone through many developmental stages, emerging from a rather limited Bedouin platform of basic Arabic literacy to eventually become the bilingual, Arabic and English mediums of instruction. This modern approach has been widely promoted as the most effective system to serve the country’s educational and cultural aspirations. This chapter reviews the theme of bilingualism in general, and the effectiveness of bilingual reading in education, in particular. It provides an analysis, together with examples, of how the bilingual elements in the story Children and Heroes can enhance literacy in the UAE. The chapter advocates strongly for bilingualism in education which is seen as an efficient, modern, and reliable approach in the current educational landscape.
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Jamal, H. (2022). Enhancing Literacy in Young Readers Through Bilingual Literature in the UAE. In: Coombe, C., Hiasat, L., Daleure, G. (eds) English Language and General Studies Education in the United Arab Emirates. English Language Teaching: Theory, Research and Pedagogy. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8888-1_4
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