This article explores the relationship between language, hegemony and identity in a desegregated school in suburban Johannesburg, South Africa. Drawing on post-structuralist theories of language learning and identity that evaluate cultural models of literacy, ideologies and institutional discourses, this article examines how multilingual learners'…

Between national and state budget cuts in education and an ever increasing push toward the English Only movement, a rise in dropout rates for Hispanic students is imminent. National data show the percentage of Hispanic students who drop out of high school to be nearly 60% in some states including Michigan, South Dakota, West Virginia, Alabama,…

Intercultural bilingual education (IBE) programmes in Latin America pose interesting questions for sociolinguistics, since their implementation interrogates the link between language and the nation resulting from the emergence of nation-states, but also from processes of decolonization. In the case of Argentina, a new legal framework and the…

This comparative study examines relationships between phonemic awareness and Spanish reading skill acquisition among three groups of Spanish-speaking first and second graders: children in Mexico receiving reading instruction in Spanish and children in the United States receiving reading instruction in either Spanish or English. Children were…

The growing number of students from increasingly diverse backgrounds--both English speaking and non-English speaking--entering English-medium institutions of higher education has put unprecedented pressure on universities to think creatively about efficient and cost-effective ways of identifying students at risk linguistically. Having done so,…

In France, most teachers still receive scant training in how to support plurilingual children in their learning of and through the language of instruction. In the absence of relevant, in-depth knowledge about language, we believe that many teachers are practising language policies based on beliefs rooted in ideologies unsupported by research…

Through a close analysis of an Indian woman's unsuccessful romance narrative, this article examines how class-based ideologies and prejudices concerning English and vernacular medium education sustain and perpetuate dismissive and disparaging attitudes toward people educated in the vernacular. The analysis utilizes theoretical understandings of…

The focus of this study was to assess the teaching effectiveness of English Grammar teachers in public Senior High Schools within the Cape Coast Metropolis using the Quality Teaching Model. It sought to ascertain how appropriately the three dimensions of the Quality Teaching Model are addressed in the teaching and assessment practices of the…

In 1957 Ghana was the first sub-Saharan colonial nation-state to achieve independence from British rule. The language of literacy instruction, however, remained English throughout most of Ghana's independence, effectively thwarting reading and writing in 11 major and 67 minor indigenous languages in use today. After years of policy shifts,…

Senegal adopted French as the country's sole official language at the time of independence in 1960, since when the language has been used in administration and other formal domains. Similarly, French is employed throughout the formal education system as the language of instruction. Since the 1990s, however, government has mounted an ambitious…

The national language of Tanzania is Kiswahili. However, Tanzania has two official languages: English, introduced in colonial times, and Kiswahili, the actual "lingua franca" spoken by 99 per cent of the population. Kiswahili websites and internet content are gradually increasing, and equipment is becoming more affordable. The research…

This study which investigated parents' and teachers' preferred medium of instruction in primary schools was conducted in Enugu, South East, Nigeria. It employed the descriptive survey research method. 500 respondents were used for the study. 250 teachers were selected through simple random sampling technique. Two researcher-designed questionnaires…

With contributions from leading scholars all around the world, this volume underlines the ever-pressing need for new language in education policies to include all learners' voices in the multilingual classroom and to empower teachers to develop responsive and transformative pedagogies. Using testimonies, narratives and examples from different…

Many learners with an additional language (AL) as their language of learning and teaching (LoLT) have not acquired the level of proficiency required for them to demonstrate their knowledge and achieve the desired outcome on assessment tasks given in that language. Using instruments designed for fully fluent learners and covertly including…

When viewing the landscape of learning and literacy, politics and policy often intersect. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, literacy is one skill that progressives sought to expand and others historically used to restrict access to immigration, jobs, and civic participation. During the closing decades of the nineteenth century,…