Informed by the theoretical concepts of 'practiced' language policy and space, the study investigates the language practices of English-medium Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) programs for international students, focusing on the interactional norms of language choice in a Chinese hospital where international students are…

This paper reports on the family language policy (FLP) of three families in a Nahuatl community in Mexico. It investigates the role of: (1) parental experiences, beliefs, attitudes and expectations; (2) child practices; and (3) broader societal attitudes in shaping these policies. Drawing on survey and interview data, the study points to a tension…

The discussion of African languages as languages of learning and teaching can be traced back to the 1980s. To date, this discussion still continues and efforts to intellectualise African languages have been lax. Here, we present practical South African examples of higher education achievements in African languages that demonstrate the challenges…

Ever since the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China on 1 July 1997, policy makers in Hong Kong have instituted a series of de-colonising language policies, notably Mother Tongue Education (Education Department, 1997. "Medium of instruction guidance for secondary schools."…

The National Bilingual Programme was launched in order to promote English learning in Colombia. The failure of this programme and subsequent iterations is well-documented, and research has also examined some of its negative effects for different societal groups. However, a comprehensive study of the social justice implications of Colombia's…

This paper explores the agentive role of school leaders in interpreting and implementing macro language education policies at preschool level in the Maldives. The Preschool Management Act of 2012 initiated a change in the medium of instruction from English to Dhivehi, recognising the importance of developing children's literacy skills in the…

This paper critiques the language practices and language-in-education policy of Botswana from a translanguaging perspective. By so doing, it revisits our commonly held perceptions about multilingualism, bilingualism and language and its boundary. We commonly perceive languages as autonomous and as having boundaries and we perceive bilingualism or…

The management of bilingualism in the Spanish autonomous community of Navarre is a source of tension. The implementation of English medium of instruction in the public educational system has clashed with attempts to break with the linguistic territoriality regime by promoting Basque schooling. This paper brings together ideologies on English and…

The study is underpinned by the public sphere paradigm, which emphasizes that language policy and planning (LPP) should be studied from the actual practices of local stakeholders/agents and communities within the local sites. This approach allows researchers to understand the complex, multilayered, and dynamic process of policy interpretation,…

This paper explores, at the micro level, the sociolinguistic backgrounds of teacher trainees in a College of Education in Accra and their perceptions toward Ghana's current language-in-education policy. It aims at finding how these micro-level sociolinguistic insights could provide suggestions for language-in-education policies at the macro level.…

This article examines a group of Vietnamese ethnic minority students' language attitudes towards formal and informal language policies of the domains of school, church and ethnic community and towards their individual bilingualism. Multiple semi-structured interviews with eight college-age minority students are used as the main source of the data.…

This paper describes the language policies at 38 institutions of higher education on the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico. As a commonwealth of the US, Spanish and English hold co-official status on Puerto Rico despite the fact that majority of islanders use Spanish as their first language. Given the colonial status of the island, English has held…

Situated at the intersection of sociolinguistic and educational planes, English as a medium-of-instruction debate has always been at the crux of the intense debates, and offers a lens for a systematic investigation of the spread of English in Turkey. As Turkey is moving toward greater integration with the European Union and promoting its…

In the Basque Country, Northern Spain, Basque (Euskera) and Spanish are official languages. In recent decades, Basque language revitalization and the efforts to make this an unmarked language (normalization) have co-existed with the rapid increase in immigration from outside the Basque region, and most recently from outside Spain. Given the…

This contribution traces the development of an educational support program ("Förderunterricht") for immigrant children in the German Ruhr area, a region that has traditionally been strongly impacted by different waves of immigration. The program has grown out of what was originally a small-scale application of research results of a study…