Beyond his contributions to the field of psychology, Vygotsky may be considered as 'one of the first thinkers in complexity' (Jörg, 2011 p. 14). Vygotsky challenged linear causality and defended the idea of the transcendence of individual learning to focus on the generative potential of learning and development through social interactions,…

This study provides preliminary data on the phonological development of Haitian Creole-Speaking children. The purpose of this study is to determine phonological acquisition in the speech of normally developing monolingual Haitian Creole-Speaking preschoolers, ages 2 to 4. Speech samples were collected cross-sectionally from 12 Haitian children…

There is a call for multilingual pedagogies including the use of literacy in several languages in early childhood education. However, many practitioners find it difficult to challenge the dominant language ideologies and are unsure of how to develop literacy practices in multiple languages. This paper is based in Luxembourg where a multilingual…

While the extant literature has highlighted the important contribution of home literacy experiences to early literacy development, limited research has been carried out among children living in postcolonial contexts, where there is a mismatch between the home and school language. Such is the case of Mauritius. The present exploratory case study…

This article is a comparative look at the cluster reduction patterns of English #sC onsets in three groups of children. Data from 40 monolingual, 40 Spanish-English bilingual and 40 Haitian Creole-English bilingual children were examined. While there were several similarities in the patterns exhibited by the three groups, there was a sharp…

Mauritius is a multilingual island, where there is a linguistic and literacy paradox. While Mauritian Creole dominates as the spoken language of the population, English and French are the main print languages, as well as the main languages of literacy and education. In such a complex situation, preschool is an interesting terrain in which to…

Mauritius is a linguistically diverse island: most people on the island are native speakers of Mauritian Creole, a French-lexified Creole; English is the written medium of instruction in primary schools and French is taught as a compulsory subject. The discontinuity between the home language and the school languages is viewed as problematic by…

Multilingualism is an international fact of life and increasing in the United States. Multilingual families are exceedingly diverse, and policies relevant to them should take this into account. The quantity and quality of a child's exposure to responsive conversation spoken by fluent adults predicts both monolingual and multilingual language and…

Most Mauritian children face a language challenge as they leave their homes and start school. While most Mauritian children speak a French-lexified Creole as home language, the Mauritian primary education programme promotes English as the main language of literacy and the only written medium of instruction. In such a context, the preschool has the…