The percentage of multilingual learners in U.S. public schools is steadily increasing, and by 2025, an estimated 1 in 4 children nationally will be multilingual learners (National Education Association, 2020). Simultaneously, there has been a significant shift toward linguistic diversity in two and four-year colleges. Yet, there is little research…

This coda considers how translanguaging discourse is manifested in classrooms. Li Wei and Lin open up spaces of possibility for translanguaging by questioning the order of language. In so doing, the school code assumes its appropriate place as a system of coloniality.

The notion of language proficiency in English Language Teaching (ELT), as an internationalized educational enterprise, has tended to be operationalized in terms of stable lexicogrammar and enduring normative patterns of social use. It will be argued that this 'established' stability has been challenged by the scholarship in several fields of…

Upholding a critical, ethical, multilingual stance presents numerous challenges amidst a myriad of institutional, infrastructural, and societal pressures. Despite significant breakthroughs, such as translanguaging theories and pedagogies and the evolution of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) principles, the journey towards a more inclusive and…

Given the continuing harm that racism produces in the U.S. and the world, as well as the increased interest in anti-racist work, this paper asks: Is the work of the communication center racist? In the absence of an anti-racist praxis in every hire, in every tutoring session, in every workshop, in every training, the short answer is…

In this article I examine lecturers' beliefs about the use of Tetum for academic, scientific and vocational communication at university in Timor-Leste and discuss the discursive and performative language planning roles that they play in the intellectualisation of the language. Drawing on analysis of recorded discussions among university lecturers…

The definitions of "academic language" available to teachers and teacher educators often invoke generalized assumptions about the supposed gap between complex, discipline-specific forms of language and the everyday language of Latina/o/x students. In this article, we advance an alternative hypothesis -- that Latina/o/x students boast…

Over the past 40 years, Jim Cummins has proposed a number of highly influential theoretical concepts, including the threshold and interdependence hypotheses and the distinction between conversational fluency and academic language proficiency. In this book, he provides a personal account of how these ideas developed and he examines the credibility…

This paper reports on a writing programme I started at Bronx Community College to improve academic success among recently immigrated Spanish-speaking students by linking ESL courses to Spanish academic literacy courses within the framework of a learning community. My reflection begins by articulating the pedagogical rationale for looking beyond…

We argue that 'academic language' should not be understood as technical components associated with a 'register', and that instead we must attend to its enregisterment. Enregisterment relies upon language ideologies and models of personhood, requiring attention to social components of 'academic language' beyond lexico-grammar. We draw on…

This viewpoint article provides a critical reflection on the gatekeeping and academic language practices of Anglophone universities, evaluating these in light of the promotional claims universities make about internationalization and global reach. I then consider the arguments put forward in each of the main articles in this special issue from…