Language acquisition and Language Maintenance (LM) both depend on ample opportunity and motivation. Currently, many national language societies are undergoing Language Shift (LS) to English, impacting their acquisition as first (L1) and possibly even more as second (L2) language. This study interviewed 44 adolescents, including 24 L1 and 20 L2…

The educational disparities that can be found in the English language learning outcomes of middle school students in Austria have gone relatively unexplored in international research. National studies have tended to attribute lower educational outcomes either to students' socioeconomic status or their multilingual background. In this article, we…

With the widening urban-rural gap caused by urbanisation, the equity of urban-rural education has become a research hotspot. This study explored the differences in motivational beliefs about English learning among Chinese urban and rural students and the impact of motivational beliefs on their English performance. A total of 6326 urban and 2600…

The increasing influx into Australia of (im)migrants whose first language is not English has made Australia linguistically more diverse than ever. Despite this, Australia remains a strongly Anglocentric nation, and migrants, in response, tend to abandon their heritage languages (HL) and shift to English relatively quickly. Korean migrants in…

This interdisciplinary study investigates whether, and to what extent, grit (consisting of "perseverance of effort" and "consistency of interests") and classroom enjoyment are linked with EFL learners' willingness to communicate in a second language (L2 WTC), the final psychological step before actual English communication. To…

The Italian linguistic space has radically changed through the onset of the new millennium due to the presence of innovative multiple linguistic practices that have taken place as a consequence of deterritorialization processes. Furthermore, Latino diaspora in recent years have fostered the appearance of new forms of Global Spanishes (García and…

This article explores language use and investment among Somali-speaking children and adolescents in Sweden, through group interviews and survey data. Our findings indicate that there are incentives to invest in Somali language learning considering the reported language use patterns and the expressed positive attitudes towards Somali mother tongue…

This study examines the cultural contents in one textbook series, which is currently in use for English as a foreign language (EFL) education among ethnic Mongol junior high students in Inner Mongolia, China, to understand the representations of multiculturalism and underlying power relations that appear in them. Applying Kachru and Nelson's model…

The non-native English-speaking teachers' (NNESTs) beliefs about the monolingual approach have not been sufficiently studied in the teaching of English as a foreign language (EFL). In examining the NNESTs' beliefs about that issue, the present study adapts Guy Cook's recent framework, according to which the monolingual approach is based upon four…

This ethnographic study aims to foreground the voices of 34 first through twelfth graders who belong to first-generation immigrant families from Mexico and Central America and attend Nueva Vida Church (fictitious name) in a Midwestern US city. They insightfully reflect upon their language, culture and citizenship during Sunday school class focus…

Applying Kachru and Nelson's model of English spread and their categorisation into Inner/Outer/Expanding Circles, this content analysis of English as a Foreign Language textbooks used in Japanese junior high schools investigates which countries were introduced and further studies how Japan's domestic diversity was constructed in those textbooks.…