The linguistic competence of the children involved. The monolingual
Navajo or Eskimo child would need a different programme from his bilingual
cousin who, perhaps due to the proximity of an English-speaking
town or television station or because of some English-speaking neighbours
in the village already has a certain competence in English (Trifonovitch,
1976). However, even though in the latter instance a certain knowledge of
the dominant language might be present, would it be sufficient for use as a
medium in education? Paulston (1980, quoting Gaardner n.d.) refers to the
concept of "folk bilingualism" which refers to bilinguals who are members
of an underprivileged section of society and whose bilingualism arises
through confrontation with the dominant language. This confrontation does
not necessarily lead to a sufficient command of the dominant language for
use as a medium of instruction.