In a highly multilingual country like India, challenges and opportunities arise in education and language policy. Although multilingualism is often associated with developmental advantages, Indian primary school children generally show low learning outcomes, specifically on literacy. Here we examine the influence of mother tongue education and…

Many classrooms include students who use multiple languages other than the school-sanctioned or teacher's language(s). This study asks how English-medium teachers develop language ideologies that support critical translingual literacy instruction. Using a collective case study, we ask how five English-medium teachers in a U.S. graduate course name…

The Strategic Approach to Girls' Education (STAGE) project developed and implemented an intervention that helped marginalized out-of-school girls in the northern regions of Ghana enter and be successful in primary school. STAGE builds on the Government of Ghana's Complementary Basic Education policy, which supports an accelerated learning program…

The DLC concept also allows teachers and researchers to take into account various kinds of impact that multilingualism has on education. One impact of DLC is to illuminate how literacy teaching is to proceed in multilingual classrooms, with learners coming from traditions of literacy that might differ markedly from the official curriculum.…

This paper proposes a framework for multilingual language-in-education policy implementation, offered as a critically constructive response to India's recent "National Education Policy 2020" (GOI, 2020). Rooted in India's existing educational language policy, our linguistically inclusive 'Languages for Learning' (LFL) framework is, we…

This paper explores the agentive role of school leaders in interpreting and implementing macro language education policies at preschool level in the Maldives. The Preschool Management Act of 2012 initiated a change in the medium of instruction from English to Dhivehi, recognising the importance of developing children's literacy skills in the…

To address the evidence gap in making effective language of instruction (LOI) decisions, we propose a systematic review of the role of LOI choices in education programs and policies on literacy outcomes in multilingual educational contexts in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Grounded in a multidisciplinary theory of change (ToC)…

This paper reports on the shifts in understanding experienced by participants in a postgraduate initial teacher education course designed around pedagogical translanguaging as a core theoretical and pedagogical concept. Throughout the semester-long unit, teacher education students engaged with culturally and linguistically responsive teaching…

Two major, inter-related issues are analysed in this paper -- mother tongue (MT) and early childhood care and education (ECCE). Evidence tells us that learning first in one's MT leads to better outcomes in the future -- for individuals, cultures, and nations. But MT is used rarely in ECCE programmes and the early grades of primary school so that…

Current research on language revitalisation through education has highlighted the impact of the standard language ideology on minoritised language practices. This ideology is intertwined with emerging literacy practices in language revitalisation, leading to debates on what to teach minority language students, and how. The paper argues that…

Background: South African literacy-as-social-practice theoreticians, language-in-education experts, educational linguists, and language policies advocate multilingual pedagogies to acknowledge and cater to diverse multilingual learners' literacy development. Universities purport multilingualism to provide for the multilingual norm, students'…

The idea of employing culturally and linguistically appropriate resources to address disparate literacy levels and to maintain the languages and cultures of communities in the Pacific has been presented by academics from different disciplines. In 2012, a National Language Policy was endorsed in Vanuatu, accommodating the endangered vernacular…

This article assesses the extent to which children's language preference and their home environment matter for literacy retention. Using data from the Complementary Basic Education (CBE) program in Ghana, the authors found that large numbers of disadvantaged students reverted to not even being able to read a single word following school closures…

An extensive focus on written language in early literacy instruction and assessment for emergent bilinguals places students at a disadvantage since they are learning English as a new language. Typically, classroom instruction has a narrow view of literacy and is dominated by a focus on tested skills, with little emphasis on the diverse backgrounds…

Limited access to reading material written in local languages is considered a contributing factor to poor reading achievement in Sub-Saharan Africa. Several non-government projects are attempting to compensate for this by providing extensive reading material. One such project is the non-commercial, donor-initiated African Storybook. This article…