The ideological role of English, beyond its instrumental value, is reported to be immense. British colonial rule deployed English as an ideological tool which facilitated colonial subjugation and religious conversion. Connections between English and evangelism have widened in the postcolonial and globalising world, leading to labelling English as…

Despite growing attention paid to the language ideologies of teachers as actors in bilingualism or multilingualism studies, little research has examined whether and how power dynamics between majority and minority languages play a role in the promulgation of a majority language to ethnic minority learners of that majority language. This paper…

This study examines the representation of cultures across three sets of national English textbooks currently used in China by conducting a synchronic content analysis to explore what and how cultures are represented in the textbooks. Data analysis was conducted based on a newly constructed framework focusing on the content (countries and…

China has had an ambivalent policy for the learning and teaching of English as a foreign language (EFL) over much of its history. The explicit and implicit implementation of language policy has had a significant impact on the content of EFL textbooks and the ideologies underlying them. However, studies exploring such ideologies remain sensitive…

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…

Negotiating their double identity as Mauritians and Muslims in multilingual and in multiethnic Mauritius, Mauritian Muslims have been socialised into reading and writing in Kreol in madrassahs, while they have never been exposed to Kreol literacy in mainstream education. At the point where Kreol is being introduced as an optional school subject,…

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.…

This article describes a multilingual glossary project in the economics department at the University of Cape Town which gave multilingual students learning economics through the medium of English, opportunities to discuss new economic concepts in their home languages in order to broaden and enrich understanding of these new concepts. The findings…

Israeli students need to be multilingually literate to read academic texts, mainly in Hebrew, Arabic, Russian and English. In fact, little is known about students' reading habits despite a variety of university reading comprehension courses in different languages. The present study examines students' reading preferences and textual expectations,…

During the last two decades of colonial rule, a wide gulf existed between policy and practice in Hong Kong's English-medium secondary schools: while English was the medium of textbooks, assignments and examinations, Cantonese and Cantonese-English mixed code were the dominant media of classroom communication. Although mixed-mode instruction was…

Discusses multilingual resources for children--books in languages other than English as well as dual language books written in both heritage languages and English for immigrants. Focuses on the challenges dual language books present for translators, emphasizing that publishers' insensitivity has often resulted in inadequate translations. (10…