While translanguaging has been adequately researched in various educational sectors, there is scant research at the primary-level English-L2 classroom in the Chinese educational context. Within a monolingual English-only immersion policy favoured by the state in China for many decades now, translanguaging has been a debated issue recently. Within…

Despite Estonia being ranked among the highest performing nations in the world-wide testing of students, these encouraging results are somewhat overshadowed by the challenge to overcome the divided school system with different languages of learning that impacts crucially on students' social, academic and professional paths. The study examines…

Colonialism and displacement have not only led to the migration of millions of Irish people and the endangerment of the Irish language, but also to a subjectivity in which it is possible to struggle against the risk of language loss. This paper explores the importance of sharing stories and information about family at second-language Irish…

Assessing vocabulary knowledge is an important part of establishing language proficiency in bilingual children. The crosslinguistic lexical tasks (CLTs) provide a framework for testing vocabulary development in three-to-six year-olds using a standard procedure and comparable items for multiple languages. This study describes the development of the…

In this article, I analyse the programme and pedagogy of "Karmelo Ikastola," a Basque immersion school that promotes parental involvement and language use within the family. The "Karmelo" case is noteworthy due to its success at effectively promoting the use of Basque among students inside and outside the school along with its…

Based on video recordings of five pre-k to grade 4 Chinese dual-language bilingual education (DLBE) teachers' classroom instruction, this article examines the Chinese DLBE teachers' target and first language use and pedagogical moves during their processes of learning to teach in immersion schools in the US. Conversational analyses of classroom…

This paper tackles the important question of practitioner engagement and is the first to present an overview of relevant Gaelic medium education (GME) research. Following the formal inception in 1985, GME is now more widely available across Scotland. An overview of GME is presented and situates provision within the other Celtic minority languages…

Scholars have consistently theorised that language ideologies can influence the ways in which bilingual speakers in minority language settings identify and engage with the linguistic varieties available to them. Research conducted by the author examined the interplay of language use and ideologies among a purposive sample of adults who started in…

Compared with other countries in Asia, Japan is far behind in terms of introducing and delivering bilingual education, let alone effective immersion programmes. In order to make its citizens more bilingual, Japan has been introducing innovative measures including the implementation of the teaching of English in elementary education and a new…

This article explores what immersion English education means in South Korea (henceforth Korea) and examines various related educational practices. The proposal for English immersion from the Presidential Transition Committee of the Lee administration in early 2008 has highlighted immersion education in Korea. Ironically, since the committee's…

Scholars who work with Latino/as in the USA have long been calling for a more nuanced understanding of the heterogeneity of the US-based Latino population. Two-way Immersion (TWI) bilingual education programmes are an interesting context in which to examine the Latino parent communities in the USA. Overall, the language enrichment nature of TWI…

Research has demonstrated that second language immersion is an effective means of facilitating primary school students' second language acquisition without undermining their competence in their first language. Despite the rapid growth of Chinese-English bilingual programmes in China, limited empirical research has been conducted thus far by which…

Globalisation processes, often accused of imposing uniformity the world over, also open up opportunities for minorities (including linguistic ones) to exploit a variety of spaces for self-definition and self-expression. The expansion in the use of minority languages in public signage is one consequence of this present phase of reorientation in…

Provides a brief overview of the sociolinguistic situation in which the Catalan immersion program is being implemented and discusses the issues related to the main feature that distinguishes the program--the low socioeconomic background of the students. Also discussed are current theories about the discontinuity between the language used at home…

Presents a theory that all developing and developed bilinguals have a preferred and a second language (L2) and that the bilingual increases L2 competence through fluctuating activity between bilingual preferred L2 medium-oriented communication and monolingual L2 message-oriented communication. Discusses implications of the theory for language…