The Canadian educational system has been influenced by geography, population, and natural resources. In some provinces, denominational schools exist within the public school system. Although committed to a multiethnic society, private education also exists within the larger system, with religious or Christian schools considered a subset of private…

A study was conducted to determine whether the measures used to identify native English speakers who are at risk for reading difficulties could also be used for identifying English learners who were at a similar risk. Additionally it was investigated whether English learners should be assessed in the language of instruction, English, or in their…

Intercultural language learning gives a place to the use of both the target language and the learners' first and/or other language(s). There is a need to develop a balance, however, as each language contributes differently to learning. The purpose of thinking about language use in the classroom is to develop an informed approach to using as much…

American Sign Language (ASL) is a visual-gestural language identified as the first or natural language of many persons who are deaf in the United States. For over 200 years, it has been the focal point of a heated controversy regarding optimal teaching methodologies for deaf children in the American elementary and secondary educational systems.…

We argue here that the combination of U.S. federal education policy as embodied in the "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001" with the passage of a California state initiative that required that "nearly all classroom instruction [be] in English...for a period not normally intended to exceed one year" in 1998 created a "perfect…

British Somaliland, a protectorate from which Christian missionaries were excluded, opened its first government-run school in 1938. The intention of the new director of education, Randall Ellison, was to use written Somali in preference to Arabic. This drew intense criticism from local religious leaders, and had to be abandoned. Accused of being a…

Frisian, a unique minority language in the Netherlands, is in the middle ranks of threatened European minority languages in Europe. In recent decades a framework for language policy has been developed in which the educational domain is one of the spearheads. This article provides an overview of language policy and language rights for Frisian…

To help educators make informed decisions about English language learners (ELLs), this Connecting Research to Practice brief provides an overview of key research findings, highlights federal policies related to ELLs, outlines district-level and school-level action opportunities, and lists resources that offer more information. English language…

Introduction: The purpose of this study was to examine perceived levels of burnout among Turkish high school teachers working in Turkey and abroad. Method: A total of 255 Turkish teachers working at public schools in Germany (n=78), Cyprus (n=94) and Turkey (n=83) comprised our study group. In Germany and Cyprus, the participants were selected…

The ongoing migration from the rural areas of South Africa to its cities is exerting strong influences on the language practices of the young, as they learn to cope with new living spaces where languages and cultures converge. Drawing on the theories of transcultural and transidiomatic practices (Jacquemet, 2005; Pennycook, 2007), this article…

This article discusses citizenship policies in Israel within the context of language, ideology, and nationalism. According to the "Law of Return", Jewish immigrants are entitled to be granted citizenship with no prior conditions; Arabs who were living in Palestine in 1948 (the time the state was founded) and their children are entitled…

In the US, public school teachers are currently experiencing an unprecedented increase in the number of English language learner (ELL) students with whom they work. Research shows the practice of incorporating ELL students' native languages (L1) into instruction to be a major factor enhancing their success in school. In this study, 327 pre-service…

Under the Israeli language education policy, the mother tongue is learned first for several years, followed by a second language (English for Jews, Hebrew for Arabs) and then a third language (English for Arabs, Arabic/French for Jews). This type of limited bilingualism seems to suit the Israeli reality in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict,…

This article aims at identifying the kind of American and British literature tests that can be designed to allow students who enter a bilingual education program at a private university in Colombia to have their previous knowledge in these two subjects accredited through a proficiency test. Students' needs, opinions, beliefs, existing commercial…

The present study focused on investigating (a) what authentic texts were used and (b) how they were used for instruction in three elementary schools, where learners' L1/D1 was a Caribbean Creole. Three findings emerged: First, teachers focused considerable attention on developing students' vocabularies and knowledge of English grammar. Second,…