The UK is linguistically rich but faces a reducing uptake of language learning in schools, as pupils feel more withdrawn and disinterested in learning an additional language to English. A key component in many linguistic minority communities to preserve their language is complementary schooling (CS), which has wide-ranging educational and societal…

This article presents findings from the global literacy project, Critical Connections: Multilingual Digital Storytelling (MDST), which provides a means of nurturing and reflecting multiliteracies in practice. It recognises the power of storytelling and the space stories offer both for self-representation and for engaging with otherness. It draws…

The benefits of learning and retaining heritage languages are well documented in the literature. Chinese heritage language learners' commitment to their heritage language learning has gained significant research ground in social psychological and post-structural schools, with empirical evidence predominantly emerging from the North American…

This article draws on research carried out in a Chinese complementary school in Scotland. The research focused on children's experience of learning to read Chinese and on the strategies that they used to support their learning. Here, I provide an account of one particular aspect of this research, namely the creation of a dialogic space for…

Language learning and teaching of endangered languages have many features and needs that are quite different from the teaching of world languages. Groups whose languages are endangered try to turn language loss around; many new language teaching and learning strategies are emerging, to suit the special needs and goals of language revitalization.…

Texas Czech is a product of over a century and a half of contact between Moravian Czech and English in Texas. While Texans of this descent have largely maintained a sense of distinctive ethnic identity and have creatively re-authenticated their ancestors' traditions into a unique Texas Czech culture, their language is now on the verge of…

Researchers have shown that the maintenance of a minority language has positive effects on the minority students' view of self, educational attainment, and career opportunities (Cho 2000; Wright and Taylor 1995). In the research for this article, however, we found that such a focus on the effects of heritage-language education on the students is…

Goldsmiths College is one of a number of providers of initial teacher education to have introduced courses in community/heritage languages in the UK in recent years. Students taking the course gain experience in working with a wide range of learners across different sectors (state maintained, independent and complementary). This study is based on…

Discusses the historical perspective relating to current problems facing mother tongue instruction in Sierra Leone and examines post-independence policies to highlight the institutional bases of mother tongue education and to consider causes of inertia and negative attitudes towards it since independence. (Author/VWL)