Many observers have argued that minority language speakers often have difficulty with school-based literacy and that the poorer school achievement of such learners occurs at least partly as a result of these difficulties. At the same time, many have argued for a recognition of the multiple literacies required for citizens in a 21st century world.…

Australia is a country of high linguistic diversity, with more than 300 languages spoken. Today, 19% of the population aged over 5 years speak a language other than English at home. Against this background, we examine government policies and prominent initiatives developed at national level in the past 30 years to address the challenge of offering…

This dissertation describes the segmental and prosodic phonology of Fataluku (IPA [fataluku], ISO 639-3 ddg), a highly underdocumented Papuan language in East Timor (island Southeast Asia). Fataluku is classified as a member of the Timor-Alor-Pantar language (TAP) family, which currently includes approximately 25 members spread across Timor and…

This study was conducted within the context of bilingual Arabic-Hebrew medium preschools in Israel which were established to incorporate instruction in the native languages of both majority and minority children in the classroom. Bilingual education in various settings produces a wide variety of outcomes in terms of language proficiency, cultural…

Educational issues in relation to ethnicity and language education policies have been underexplored in Asian contexts. In particular, issues related to ethnic and linguistic minority students have not received much attention in the post-colonial context of Hong Kong. This paper highlights challenges and tensions faced by Nepali ethnic minority…

The article presents the results of a research into Ukrainian state and university language policies, and a Ukrainian university community's potential to become multilingual in terms of its foreign language proficiency and attitudes toward multilingual tertiary education. The results allow assuming that Ukrainian state acts and university…

In a nation where monolingualism predominates, heritage language (HL) has been downplayed as less important in educational contexts in the U.S. Disproportionately little attention has been given to the role of HL in language minority (LM) students' attendance to postsecondary education (PSE) (cf. Brutt-Griffler, Janina, and Manka Varghese, eds.…

This regional dossier aims to provide a concise description of the European minority language, Udmurt, in education. Aspects that are addressed include features of the education system, recent educational policies, main actors, legal arrangements and support structures, as well as quantitative aspects such as the number of schools, teachers,…

This study is descriptive, and it is set out to primarily investigate the use and order of determiners in the Mo/Deg language. The study finds answers to the questions, "What determiner types are there in the Mo/Deg language, and in what order do they collocate with the head of the noun phrase?" Using purposive sampling, the study…

This article examines the work of Geneva Smitherman, its contribution to the development of composition studies, and its relation to recent scholarship on translingualism and code-meshing. Analyzing her prodigious output in relation to these contemporary studies of language diversity and writing instruction, the article considers Smitherman's…

The study examined whether exposure to spellings of new vocabulary words improved monolinguals' and language minority (LM) students' (n = 25) memory for pronunciations, meanings, and spellings of the words. College students who are native English-speaking monolinguals (n = 12) and LM students who learned English as their second language (n = 13)…

This article presents the language practices of global youth who populate an online discussion forum devoted to Korea-produced dramas. Qualitative data included the writing, visual images, and interactions created within the forum. Findings revealed youth from geographically disparate places using new media affordances to engage with a minority…

Although there is a growing body of literature on the development of reading skills of Spanish-speaking language minority children, little research has focused on the development of writing skills in this population. This study evaluated whether children's Spanish early reading skills (i.e., print knowledge, phonological awareness, oral language)…

In this plenary speech I examine multilingual interaction in a number of European regions in which minority languages are being revitalized. Education is a crucial variable, but the wider society is equally significant. The context of revitalization is no longer bilingual but increasingly multilingual. I draw on the results of a long-running…

This study provides the first systematic account of word-final cluster acquisition in bilingual children. To this end, forty Welsh-English bilingual children differing in language dominance and age (2;6 to 5;0) participated in a picture-naming task in English and Welsh. The results revealed significant age and dominance effects on cluster…