What's the relevance of 'Linguistic Citizenship' (LC), a concept developed in southern Africa, to language education in England? LC is committed to democratic participation and voice, to linguistic diversity and the value of sociolinguistic understanding (Stroud 2001), and it provides a framework for contesting linguistic conditions in England,…

Whilst mainstream schools in England may encourage multilingualism by insisting on the study of foreign languages, multilingual children are not always provided with support for the maintenance of their heritage languages and cultures. In response to this shortcoming, communities organise themselves to support their young members by setting up…

Mother Tongue Education (MTE) in the Philippines seeks to educate learners from kindergarten to 3rd grade using their mother tongues. However, in Linguistically Diverse Contexts (LDCs) where multiple mother tongues are spoken, a lingua franca is nominated as the alternative MOI. Against this backdrop, our study explores the language attitudes of…

Based on the theory of change, we gather, organize, and synthesize the evidence on the impact of three language of instruction (LOI) choices (teaching in mother tongue [MT] with later transition, teaching in a non-MT language, or teaching in two or more languages at one time) on literacy and biliteracy outcomes. We focus on quantitative and…

Drawing on Sutton and Levinson's Socio-cultural Approach to policy, this study explores the experiences and collective language beliefs of 25 teachers implementing the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTBMLE) policy in two urban Philippine school districts. Mixed methods were used to understand policy enactment and teacher perspectives.…

This paper examines how language-based artificial intelligence is envisaged to imagine new futures for indigenous languages. It draws on the visions, programmes, and plans of six language initiatives that are developing language technology for often-marginalised indigenous, tribal, and minority (ITM) languages, such as Gondi, Maithili, Rajasthani…

This study investigates the interplay among identity, language, and culture of six heritage language (HL) teachers at a Greek school in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. It applies the concept of "participative multilingual identity construction" and argues that in order for teachers to provide agency and opportunities to their…

Iceland has seen rapidly changing demographics in recent years as a result of growing immigration to the country. This is reflected in the education system where children speak altogether around 100 languages. This qualitative research aims at exploring the language policies and practices of diverse immigrant families and their cooperation with…

Producing local materials is a challenge to mother tongue education programs especially in linguistically diverse contexts. To address this, a five-day teacher training program on materials localization for K-3 teachers in a linguistically diverse area in the Philippines was designed and implemented. The program was based on frameworks about…

This article focuses on the ever-increasing stress on multilingual education (MLE) in policy documents, especially its pairing with mother tongues in education (MTE). This focus brings into relief the relationship between MTE, the preservation of linguistic diversity and social democracy. We argue that the outcome of this relationship crucially…

The teaching of native languages is seen as being key to the development of cognitive skills, better academic performance in early grades and a resource for linguistic (re)vitalization and cultural revival. This study examines the institutional challenges in teaching and learning native languages in Pakistan. The study uses teachers' agency…

This study aimed to explore the implementation of the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) policy by public elementary teachers in the Philippines through a case study approach. Specifically, the study sought to examine how three elementary teachers in one public school institution distinctively implement the MTB-MLE policy in…

This paper examines minority language education in the Dutch province of Fryslân from a rights-based approach. To conduct the analysis, we employed a qualitative (legal) content analysis. We explored minority language rights at different levels to answer the following question: To what extent are international and regional standards on…

In a highly multilingual country like India, challenges and opportunities arise in education and language policy. Although multilingualism is often associated with developmental advantages, Indian primary school children generally show low learning outcomes, specifically on literacy. Here we examine the influence of mother tongue education and…

Despite Nepal's huge linguistic diversity, maintaining minority languages and providing the mother tongue-based education to non-dominant language children are Nepal's two major obstacles. Scholars have pointed to a negative consequence of the standard language ideology on non-dominant language maintenance and mother tongue-based schooling. Using…