In this paper, I examine the changing currency of languages in the context of migration and mobility based on case studies of Filipino migrants in Australia. Drawing on two sociolinguistic studies conducted with and for Filipino migrants, I highlight how the "monolingual mindset" (Clyne, 2008) reinforced by the "White-English…

This paper uses the themes of language rights, language choice, and language risk to consider linguistic insecurity in the Northwest Amazon (Upper Negro river) region of Brazil. Because the region is home to a large number of languages (c. two dozen), the idea of preserving this diversity is a popular theme in discourses about language in the…

This paper sets out to peruse the role of various theories or more precisely, hypotheses invoked in second language acquisition (SLA) research by surveying three empirical studies pertaining to the critical period hypothesis in the SLA of phonetics and phonology. In particular, the three studies reviewed are titled in chronological order as (1)…

An extensive focus on written language in early literacy instruction and assessment for emergent bilinguals places students at a disadvantage since they are learning English as a new language. Typically, classroom instruction has a narrow view of literacy and is dominated by a focus on tested skills, with little emphasis on the diverse backgrounds…

Taking the former Yugoslavia and some of its successor states as a case study, this article examines the concepts of ethnicity and mother tongue (with a side glance at religion) as employed in recent population censuses. A special focus is on the sometimes considerable discrepancies between the ethnic and linguistic affiliations of the…

Public education in the United States acts as a governmental tool of neoliberalism, through which state power and sovereignty are deployed and transformed in daily life. Here, I examine how the divergence of sovereignty is exerted over refugee students and their families in US public education. Drawing on 42 months of ethnographic data collected…

The first module of the online Master of Arts (MA) in Translation at the Open University, Introduction to Translation Theory and Practice, includes a language development strand which encourages students to diagnose their own language development needs and introduces them to tools, resources, strategies, and learning communities that will enable…

Migration-related multilingualism is a core issue of academic discussion regarding educational inequality in German schools. While existing studies have analysed the discrimination against children's languages from linguistic minorities in school, this paper focuses on social practices in a primary school that seeks to recognise and value…

This report discusses why Japan continues to struggle with and appears on the surface to be reluctant to embrace the English language as a medium to conduct business and indeed tourism as opposed to their South East Asian neighbours. The topics covered were the historical context of Japan's isolationist policy, Japan's educational system, and…

This viewpoint article provides a critical reflection on the gatekeeping and academic language practices of Anglophone universities, evaluating these in light of the promotional claims universities make about internationalization and global reach. I then consider the arguments put forward in each of the main articles in this special issue from…

Despite a century-old narrative as a monolingual country with quaint regional dialects, Thailand is in fact a country of vast linguistic diversity, where a population of approximately 60 million speak more than 70 languages representing five distinct language families (Luangthongkum, 2007; Premsrirat, 2011; Smalley, 1994), the result of a history…

Gaelic medium education (GME) was established in Scotland in 1985, with 24 students enrolled in that year [Bòrd na Gàidhlig. (n.d.). "Gaelic education." Retrieved May 20, 2013, from http://www.gaidhlig.org.uk/bord/en/our-work/education/index.php (Bòrd na Gàidhlig website)]. Since this time, growth within GME has been incremental, and in…

Community participation in the governance of school systems is a recurrent theme of educational reform in developed and developing countries alike. This article analyses the effort of one developing country -- Nepal -- to promote broader participation in educational decision-making through local school governance structure. It looks at how the…

This book examines the benefits of multilingual education that puts children's needs and interests above the individual languages involved. It advocates flexible multilingual education, which builds upon children's actual home resources and provides access to both the local and global languages that students need for their educational and…

In the era of globalisation, language-in-education policies continue to present challenges as policy-makers across the globe aim to balance the emphasis given to students' first language and the pressing need for students to be proficient in English as the global "lingua franca" [Hanna, P. (2011). Gaining global perspective: Educational…