The use of mother tongue in teaching in a multilingual setting affects the way pupils learn. A melting pot and the educational center of the North, Baguio City, Philippines demands teaching strategies that not only adapt to the interplay of the different cultures and languages but give importance to them, too. Specifically, this paper analyzed the…

"Review of Research in Education: Vol. 38, Language Policy, Politics, and Diversity in Education" explores the role of educational language policies in promoting education as a human right. There are an estimated nearly 7,000 living languages in the world. Yet, despite the extent of language diversity, only a small number of the…

Language policies in any country exist within socio-historical contexts--embedded in history and influenced by socio-political factors. In Canada, such factors were the impetus to the formation of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, which was grounded in an English/French partnership and recommended that Canada become an…

This paper focuses on the construction of language expertise in international, university-level English-medium courses where English is used as a lingua franca. Even if the courses are not language courses, language sometimes becomes the topic of discussion in the form of language correcting and commentary. This paper looks into these instances,…

This article discusses the implications of "multicompetence" (Cook, 1991), defined as an individual's knowledge of more than one language, for language assessment. The growing psycholinguistic evidence highlighting variability in native speaker performance as a result of multicompetence is reviewed, evidence that further questions the validity of…

In this article, we outline the differences between a monolingual and multilingual orientation to language and language acquisition. The increasing contact between languages in the context of globalization motivates such a shift of paradigms. Multilingual communicative practices have remained vibrant in non-western communities for a long time. We…

This is a qualitative study of nonnative English speakers who speak English as a lingua franca (ELF) in their graduate student dormitory in the United States, a community of practice (Wegner, 2004) comprised almost entirely of second language users. Using a sequential analysis (Koshik, 2002; Markee, 2000; Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974;…

Purpose: This study aims to examine a German multinational that uses English as the common corporate language (CCL) for internal communications with its international subsidiaries/agencies. It examines use of English within the workplace, and problems/opportunities it presents to those who use it. Design/methodology: The questionnaire was piloted…

Tertiary education in many countries is increasingly bilingual, with English used in parallel with the national language, particularly as a reading language. This article describes the results of a survey of student attitudes toward, and reading practices regarding, English language textbooks. Over 1,000 students at three Swedish universities…

This contribution compares literacy instruction in three different scripts in Eritrea. It uses data stemming from classroom observations of beginning readers of Tigrinya (Ge'ez script), Arabic (Arabic script) and Saho (Roman alphabet), the examination of teaching materials, and teacher interviews. Our analysis focuses on literacy events. We…

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…

The investigation of English as a lingua franca (ELF) has produced significant results in the last few years especially in regard to the description and use of this variety of English in various domains. Somewhat less is known about how far the learners and users of English as a foreign language are aware of the changing role of English, how they…

Based on appreciative inquiry and threshold concepts from an intercultural learning perspective, the article makes insights into the constructivist social learning practice of Estonian language learning amongst Russian-speaking teachers in Estonia. The application of educational action research methodology, more specifically that of Bridget…

This paper presents the perspectives of youth participating in the Society for Educational Visits and Exchanges in Canada's Volunteer Youth Experience (VYE) as gathered by way of pre- and post-program questionnaires, observations, interviews, and journals. The pan-Canadian questionnaire results suggest that this short, bilingual volunteer…

This paper critically describes the process of language policy-making in the Free State province of South Africa since 1994, based on an adapted version of the "streams approach" to policy-making. Three policy-making phases are identified, namely a first phase under the Free State Provincial Language Committee; a second phase under the…