Saeed Safdari - Islamic Azad University, Chalous Branch, Chalous

Bilingualism is a major concept in second language acquisition research. It encompasses a large area of enquiry and research topics. This review intends to clarify the major issues and aspects of bilingualism. It investigates the core issues in defining bilingualism, and then turns to elaborate on the linguistic, cognitive and social aspects of it. The differences between language education and teaching of other subjects are highlighted. Also, this paper reviews the ideas for and against bilingualism and the consequences it might bring about to bilingual individuals and societies. In addition, bilingual education and teaching programs are inspected briefly. The concluding part suggests that bilingual education and teaching bilinguals must be planned and performed with sophistication, so that the cognitive, affective, social and learner variables are taken into consideration as much as possible.

bilingualism, bilinguality, bilingual education, cognitive issues, social issues