In this position paper we highlight language as a perennial factor contributing to compromised meaning-making in multilingual primary school mathematics classrooms. We note use of the term 'translanguaging' in discussions around mitigating this meaning-making challenge. The paper argues that, while much work remains to be done towards clarifying…

Translanguaging has now become central to a sociolinguistics that foregrounds globalization and mobility as key concepts for grasping human beings' capacity to engage with and draw on both multiple linguistic -- including named languages -- and semiotic resources dynamically and in combination for the purpose of meaning-making (García, Ofelia…

This commentary highlights major validation challenges raised, explicitly or implicitly, from the four articles in the special issue on "Validity Considerations for Assessing Language Proficiency in Young Language Minority Students." They are concerned with: (1) the construct definition in consideration of young language-minority (LM)…

Suresh Canagarajah is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor and Director of the Migration Studies Project, Departments of Applied Linguistics and English, Pennsylvania State University, USA. Having a BA with a major in English from the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, and a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin, USA, Professor…

Language-in-education research can contribute to transformative progress toward educational equity and excellence. Although this assertion is likely uncontroversial within the field of language in education, agreeing on which types of research lead to which transformative progress is much less straightforward. The thought-provoking commentaries on…

This commentary discusses the four papers that comprise the special issue on dialogic teaching and learning, while making general observations that apply across the field as a whole. Similarities and differences are identified over the concepts of "dialogue" and "dialogic pedagogy". The possibility is raised that some aspects…

While learning and teaching English as an additional language are lifelong learning processes for both learners and teachers, these two sectors are largely dominated by West-centric linguistic and cultural imperialism, epistemic hegemony, racism, and neoliberalism, which are tied to colonialism and imperialism. In light of this issue, I argue that…

Alexis Patterson's paper researches equity in groupwork in the science classroom by looking at micro-interactions. She points to the key features of student voice, student visibility and student authority while addressing the teachers' role in creating a more equitable and productive talk in science classrooms. This forum paper aims at continuing…

Pieter Muysken's keynote paper, "Language contact outcomes as a result of bilingual optimization strategies", undertakes an ambitious project to theoretically unify different empirical outcomes of language contact, for instance, SLA, pidgins and Creoles, and code-switching. Muysken has dedicated a life-time to researching, rather…

As US classrooms approach a decade of response to No Child Left Behind, many questions and concerns remain around the education of those labeled as "English language learners," in both English as a Second Language and bilingual education classrooms. A national policy context where standardized tests dominate curriculum and instruction…

This paper focusses on the teaching of non-linguistic subject matters in a second or third language through bilingual education. We investigate how this specific educational framework influences the development of linguistic competence as well as disciplinary knowledge. Based on a large-scale corpus of classroom interactions collected in bilingual…

Argues that differences at the level of the categories of language alternation as they are observed in the literature are not mere terminological differences, but rather reflect theoretical and methodological differences. Adopts a praxis view of language, arguing that the notion of code and that of language are not necessarily equivalent.…

Discusses two problematic cases that arose when the Matrix Language frame model of codeswitching was applied to Arabic diglossic switching: a co-occurrence of system morphemes from both varieties of Arabic within a single CP; and CPs in which the word order is that of the dialect but the system morphemes are from Standard Arabic and CPs in which…

Comments on an article that argues that the compartmentalism of structures observed in mixed languages is the result of the cumulative effect of different contact mechanisms. (Author/VWL)

Comments on an article that argues that the compartmentalism of structures observed in mixed languages is the result of the cumulative effect of different contact mechanisms. Argues that compartmentalization, as discussed in the article, does not offer any new explanations over earlier theories. (Author/VWL)