English, in the words of Bill Bryson, "is one of the world's great growth industries". Like some kind of metalanguage with its own Europe-based meaning systems, it has constructed its own discourses in relation to Africa's conserved natural environment, nature documentaries, tourism and environmental education--at the expense of…

Language-in-education policy (decision taking) and planning (decision implementation) are complex processes requiring a number of decisions to be taken and implemented if they are to be successful. While there is research that suggests the factors that lead to successful outcomes, these are often either ignored or too difficult for polities to…

Primary school second/foreign language (SL/FL) programmes in Asia, as well as in other parts of the world, are becoming more common, with many targeting English as the SL or FL. The pressures for such English language programmes come from top-down notions that in a globalised world English is required for societies to be competitive, especially…

Within the context of a monocultural and monolingual education system, this paper seeks to explore and compare the experiences of Cypriot and non-Cypriot pupils in Greek-Cypriot primary schools with culturally diverse pupil populations. The concept of multiculturalism has been introduced only very recently in Cyprus and there has been little…

Educators worldwide have been attracted by lesson study for its teaching and learning enhancement potential. However, some believe it takes for granted language, out of which all teaching and subject matter are made. Employing a functional linguistics lens in an analysis of two second language science lesson studies, called "learning"…

In an epoch of increasing globalization and rapid social change, the political leaders of both developed and developing countries are confronted with the challenges of maintaining and improving their systems of formal education. The leaders of Madagascar, a remote island country and developing nation, have faced the challenges of leading a French…

This article examines the distributional pattern of signs in the linguistic landscape of a neighbourhood in the commercial district of Phonm Penh, Cambodia. Informed by the frameworks of ethnolinguistic vitality and ethnocultural stereotypes, it discusses the developing multilingualism from socio-economic and historical perspectives. An analysis…

Kenya's language-in-education policy supports mother-tongue education as the ideal approach to developing language and literacy skills of young learners. The policy has been informed by findings of various past national education commissions as well as international declarations such as the UNESCO declaration on the use of Vernacular Languages in…

In response to the passage of a state English-only policy and a newly mandated instructional model for English learners that focuses on English acquisition, Arizona introduced training requirements for all of the state's educators related to English learners. This policy coincided with changes in the training Arizona teachers opted to pursue,…

Arguments that have been advanced against multilingual education in Kenya and Africa in general are not new. Most post-colonial African governments have stuck to the pre-colonial education policies which have no relevance to the present day Africa and were, at best, guided by the interests of the colonial power. Unfortunately, most of the claims…

In content and language integrated learning (CLIL), as in any other type of bilingual education, two languages are used to promote cognitive and language learning. Whereas in the bilingual classroom the two languages are always present, in CLIL they may appear together or be used in totally separate circumstances. Although the relationship between…

Over the past 15 years, a range of alternative education programs have been launched in Burkina Faso. The programs have been developed primarily by international or national NGOs, within a supportive policy space provided by the national government. They aim to respond to the widely recognized inadequacy of the French-language ecoles classiques to…

Language is both a means and an end in educational systems. As a means to learning, it manifests itself in countless, shifting modalities; while as an end or objective of learning, it is often perceived as an autonomous, formal entity. Through a case study of an interdisciplinary secondary school project in Luxembourg, this paper explores the…

Using the frameworks of critical discourse analysis, representation theory, and legitimization theory, this study examines the political discourse of the campaign for Proposition 227 in California--particularly, the key social representations of languages, their speakers, and the main political actors in the campaign. The analysis examines the…

This article presents a qualitative, comparative study of metadiscourse in the academic writing of two groups of undergraduate students working in two different disciplines. The groups of students were: 1) Native speakers of Mandarin studying in China through the medium of English; 2) Native speakers of Mandarin studying in the UK through the…