Many Indigenous Latinx students in Spanish/English dual language programs in the US speak languages that are often not valued or taken advantage of in the process of learning Spanish and English. This participatory critical (collective) autoethnography explores the possibilities of handwriting lessons as a vehicle for the incorporation of K'iche'…

Developing young learners' language awareness is becoming an important educational goal in a rapidly globalised world characterised by linguistic and cultural diversity. Drawing upon previous research in the field, the article highlights the importance of promoting language diversity and nurturing language awareness from an early age. We present a…

Within educational research, there has been an increased interest in recent years to develop learners' language awareness (LA) in the context of plurilingual education. Recommendations and intentions are given pointing to the benefits, but there are few concrete tools for how it can be carried out in practice. The article seeks to contribute to…

At the intersection of social studies and world language curricula are opportunities to explore students' prior learning with vocabulary-rich content designed to support language acquisition goals. "Funds of knowledge" is defined as socio-cultural, economic, and historical knowledge from home and community settings. The instructional…

This coda begins by briefly discussing the constructs at the heart of this special issue -- materials use, classroom discourse, materiality, and materials -- highlighting how the compilation contributes to the expanding definition of language learning and teaching materials. I then discuss two interrelated guiding questions of this compilation --…

While Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is recognised as an effective approach worldwide, its implementation in foreign language (FL) classrooms remains difficult. Earlier studies have identified factors impeding CLT implementation, such as a lack of communicative lesson materials or teachers' more traditional views on language learning. In…

Introduction: This article investigates an early STEM family engagement program offered during the pre-kindergarten (pre-k) year. Pre-k is an important juncture for community organizations to support children's STEM engagement and parental involvement in informal STEM learning. We evaluated a program called Teaching Together STEM, which offers a…

The construct of psychological flow bridges several areas of second language learning interest, including motivation, investment, self-efficacy, and autonomy. Flow, characterized by intense focus on an enjoyable activity that is at once challenging and accessible, creates conditions that have been linked to learning. Research interest in flow has…

Some theories of second language acquisition have had a major influence on the teaching and learning of a second language. This study reports the acquisition of English as a second language over a six-month period by a six-year-old Nicaraguan girl. Findings are based on a cross-sectional study and data that come from observation, journaling, and…

After years of controversy and terminological debate, the plurilingual approach is now well accepted by language teaching communities. Still, doubts concerning how the plurilingual approach can shape the way we teach languages remain. The aim of this article is to describe a pedagogical and sequential approach that can be followed by teachers who…

This paper examines the chronotopic nature of physics discourse and instructional practices that are mediated through the integration of disciplinary spatial repertoires and mathematical symbolic systems. The paper addresses how meanings are constructed during instruction between bilingual international teaching assistants (ITAs) and undergraduate…

The 3D virtual worlds (3DVWs) were widely used for language learning in the past two decades. Although numerous research studies acknowledged the affordance, a full-scale investigation that discussed how they can be applied to language learning with substantial evidence of effect sizes were not presented. Thus, this analysis aimed to synthesize…

This article investigates how engaging students to discuss topics that reflect their ideologies in lingua franca (LF) virtual exchanges can help facilitate global citizenship development. A six-week virtual exchange is explored with students from universities in Mexico, Poland, Spain, and the USA. This study utilizes five key elements of…

Recently, early childhood programs in the United States are serving increasing numbers of dual language learners (DLLs), many of whom have disabilities or are considered at risk. Vocabulary skills in preschool and kindergarten are strong predictors of DLLs' early literacy and later reading achievement. However, DLLs might initially and temporarily…

Many Latino children in the U.S. speak primarily Spanish at home with few opportunities for exposure to English before entering school. For monolingual children, the strongest early predictor of later school success is oral language skill developed before kindergarten. Less is known about how early oral language skills support later learning in…