Teachers are now experiencing the age of quantitative test-driven assessment, in which there is little weight accorded to teacher-based judgement about student progress. In the Australian context, the NAPLaN test has become a driving force in school and teacher accountability. The language of NAPLaN is one of bands and numerical scores and…

The Intercultural Language Teaching and Learning in Practice (ILTLP) Project is a large scale, national professional learning program designed to extend the understanding and practice of language teachers with regard to intercultural language learning. The latter is an orientation to language learning that underpins the National Statement and Plan…

Feedback provided by ILTLP Project team members to participants in Phase 1 is analysed to provide insights into the process of developing programs. The questions provide a starting point for considering current programming practices in developing units of work and long- term programs to support intercultural language learning.

The significance of questioning in intercultural language learning was highlighted during Phase 1 of the project as project team members worked with teachers preparing units of work and long-term programs. This paper explores the types of questions asked by team members to elicit teachers' thinking regarding students' learning and teachers' roles…

During Phase 1 of the Intercultural Language Teaching and Learning in Practice (ILTLP) Project Nhu Trinh, a teacher of (Mandarin) Chinese, was one of a number of teachers who worked with project team members in a feedback process to develop intercultural units of work and longterm programs for their classes. The changes to Nhu's programming that…

Examines the external motivation for and attitudes toward acquiring a second language. Coming from the community at large, this type of motivation is not from the classroomand, thus, out of the hands of individual teachers. Rather, vocational usefulnes is one of the key reasons students pursue foreign language study. (SL)

Progress in the adoption of language policies and programs in Australia is reviewed and the current lack of sufficient well-trained language teachers to implement new policies is discussed. The need to ensure that language programs develop student skills relevant to the needs of business and industry are discussed. (21 references) (LB)

This book analyzes the system-wide provision of English-as-a-Second Language (ESL) services in Australia, Canada, and England suggests that a truly responsive educational vision is lacking. They find government policies to be inadequate; educational practices for ESL students to be either underdeveloped or poorly coordinated with practices for…

This paper describes responses to linguistic pluralism in Australian policy in relation to Australia's Asian language context, and the teaching and learning of Japanese within these two frameworks. Finally, the paper considers some ideas relating intercultural language learning to all second language study termed: the Third Place. There are three…

The basic task of the National Asian Languages and Studies in Australian Schools (NALSAS) strategy has been to resource and promote the teaching and learning of Asian languages and studies of Asia in Australian schools. NALSAS focuses on four Asian languages: Chinese (Mandarin), Indonesian, Japanese, and Korean. The studies of Asia are broader,…

The approaches to language maintenance in Australia are diverse and heterogeneous and include at least three kinds of programs: bilingual education programs; ethnic school programs (after hours or weekend programs that are controlled and managed by the community concerned); and mainstream school programs where the indigenous native language is…

This book focuses on the minority languages of Europe, those other than the national languages of European Union member states, by looking at the demographic, sociolinguistic, and educational aspects of both regional and immigrant languages. Empirical evidence for the status of these other languages of multicultural Europe is brought together in a…

Essays in this book include the following: "Language Revitalization: An Overview" (Leanne Hinton); "Diversity in Local Language Maintenance and Restoration: A Reason for Optimism" (Anna Ash, Jessie Little Doe Fermino, Ken Hale); "Federal Language Policy and Indigenous Languages in the United States" (Leanne Hinton);…

This edited volume contains 15 chapters. Part one, "Language Teaching, Language Learning, and Literacy," has three chapters: "The Monolingual Teaching and Bilingual Learning of English" (Henry G. Widdowson); "Literacy: The Extension of Languages Through Other Means" (Ellen Bialystok); "Bilingual Processing…

Chapters in this volume include the following: "Co-Constructing School Safetime: Safetalk Practices in Peruvian and South African Classrooms" (Nancy H. Hornberger, J. Keith Chick); "Codeswitching and Collusion: Classroom Interaction in Botswana Primary Schools" (Jo Arthur); "Language and Educational Inequality in Primary…