In this paper, we present a synthesis of a series of studies, carried out by our research groups, from the Greek educational context on teachers' and immigrant students' views on issues of bilingual acquisition and of heritage language learning and teaching. Albeit including heterogeneous samples and employing quantitative and qualitative…

This study seeks to answer two research questions. First, can listeners distinguish the ethnicity of the speakers on the basis of voice quality alone? Second, do demographic differences among the listeners affect discriminability? A simple but carefully designed and controlled ethnic identification test was carried out on 325 Singaporean…

Subtitling is a valuable tool for improving literacy and aiding language learning, but what happens when people are unable to read the subtitles? In a recent study on the reading of second language subtitles, participants were shown a subtitled short film while their eye movements were recorded by an SMI iViewX Hi-Speed eye tracker. It was found…

Research into multilingualism and personality has shown that a majority of multilinguals report feeling different when they switch from one language to another. The present study looks at perceived shifts on five scales of feelings (feeling logical, serious, emotional, fake and different) in pair-wise comparisons between languages following the…

The study reported in this article aims to capture the possible changes to the discursive mode of College English (CE) teaching in China by comparing teachers' questions, feedback, and teaching exchanges across two levels of quality courses constructed at different years. Based on transcribed data of 20 videos, it reveals that the general…

The need to recognise English language teaching (ELT) as a site for the interplay of cultural politics and competing discourses has been acknowledged in ELT literature. Writing as an English teacher in Japan, and not unfamiliar over the years with the confluencing of discourses whether relating to neoliberalism, globalisation or other forces…

In this paper, we address findings from a study conducted in a rural, Ugandan secondary school from August 2009 to May 2011 that explored the challenges and possibilities of developing language and literacy across the curriculum, including digital possibilities for the development of multilingual academic literacy. The central questions we address…

The population in the USA has become more diverse, but the number of teachers in public schools who are fluent in another language is limited. Furthermore, statistics attest that few teachers have adequate training to work with English language learners (ELLs). Teachers who lack training and have not struggled to learn another language may not…

This paper studies the situated meaning given to a so-called "welcome" service for international students at a Catalan university. The official business of the service is to offer support with bureaucratic procedures and information about available services, including those for learning Catalan. However, the complex range of overlapping…

Personal, social, cultural, economic, and political factors influence the language/s used by family members in the home domain. This study examines how family language policies are planned and developed in Filipino-Malaysian families in Malaysia. The language used at home in such mixed or exogamous marriages is also influenced by the ethnicity of…

This article examines international students' cultural adaptation at a major national university in China. A survey was designed to measure international students' adaptation to the Chinese sociocultural and educational environments in terms of five dimensions: (1) cultural empathy, (2) open-mindedness, (3) emotional stability, (4) social…

The learning of prestigious international languages becomes a process fraught with tensions in multilingual settings. The process of internationalisation in many universities has led to the spread of English-medium instruction (EMI), which tends to raise linguistic debates particularly in the case of bilingual institutions. However, and despite a…

The mixed-method study presented in this paper investigates the changes in direct and indirect intercultural contact and language-learning attitudes and effort of international students in the United Kingdom. Seventy international learners of English were asked to fill in a questionnaire three times during one academic year in an international…

Catalan companies have, until very recently, had the Spanish-speaking world as their main market. Following long periods of legal and official repression of the public and commercial use of Catalan, globalisation now places them in a new, multilingual context that makes feasible the use of Catalan alongside that of other languages. This paper…

With more than 64,500 members, the Bangladeshi community in London is one of the largest in the UK. Originating from a wave of immigration during the 1970s, a considerable part of the community now consists of a second, UK-born generation. This explorative study seeks to address, first, the extent of the intergenerational language shift from…