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…

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…

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…

This opinion piece aims to grow awareness of a range of technological initiatives that are supporting Maori language regeneration. These initiatives have been chosen because they have communities of users. This piece could be useful to educators who want to learn about the options that are available in this area, or students of Maori language for…

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…

In the midst of the complicated racial-linguistic landscape that is Montreal, Quebec, the educational experiences of the relatively small population of Anglophone Blacks are often invisibilized within the education literature, and relatively little attention is paid to the nature of Black students' and educators' struggles with racism and…

"Language death" is an undeniable phenomenon of our modern times as languages have started to disappear at an alarming rate. This has led linguists, anthropologists, philosophers and educationists to engage with this issue at various levels in an attempt to try to understand the decline in this rich area of human communication and…

The article addresses the long-standing issue over the role of the mother tongue in the foreign language classroom. In the first part it is argued that the mother tongue lays the cognitive foundations for all subsequent language learning. Double comprehension as the basic requirement for learning to take place is explained. The second part is…

Teachers in complementary schools are often assumed to be using outmoded teaching strategies and an authoritarian approach to discipline. However, it is rare for mainstream teachers to have visited these community-run after-school or weekend classes, which remain on the margins of educational provision. This paper argues that complementary…

Learning to read and write is a psycholinguistic and social process. That is why mother-tongue speakers of minority African languages find learning to read in the language they speak is a qualitatively better learning experience than learning to read in a language they are unfamiliar with. However, reading methodologies used for teaching reading…

Offers an alternative to the two approaches to teaching Spanish to adolescent and college-level bilingual native speakers interested in developing their Spanish abilities. This theory draws heavily from Freire's problem-posing procedure for critical dialogue and Vygotsky's theory of social learning. (28 references) (Author/VWL)

A seminar held in Italy was in line with the Council of Europe's project activities for dealing with educational problems caused by the rapid transformation in social groupings, in the wake of increasing labor-market mobility and migratory phenomena. Four themes were discussed: (1) official strategies set up in certain European countries with…

Two principles necessary for integrating the native language and second language approaches to language instruction are discussed: (1) that such an integration must be viewed as a meeting, not of subject areas but of professional competencies and (2) that languages must be considered not as separate systems but as a continuum. (MSE)

Examines the relationship between linguistic theory and pedagogic practices in the teaching of French at the elementary school level. Discusses two trends emerging from current literature, one denouncing the remoteness of linguistic theory from psychological research findings, the other focusing on the teaching process and its need for theoretical…