Looking at data from three siblings from a German/Polish family that immigrated to the United States in 1952, we discuss bilingual language development and the effect of teacher support in schools on language maintenance and shift. All three subjects report that they did not give up their heritage language but rather came back to it at different…

Within the discourse of language planning and policy, there is an increasing realisation of the strategic role of information and communication technologies in the promotion of indigenous African languages. The article discusses the strategic role that social software, in particular blogs and wiki, can and should play in the development of African…

In this paper, educational language policy is explored through the lens of linguistic neo-colonialism in Ireland in the case of learners of English as an Additional Language. The perspective of Ireland as a decolonized nation may have an impact on current language policy. Arguments for an additive approach to language and identity, language…

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) began in June, 2008 as a response to the Indian Residential School legacy. The commission concluded with a 2015 report which includes 94 calls to action. Some of these calls pertain to higher education including the following example "We call upon post-secondary institutions to create…

This paper describes the process of designing, administering, and assessing a language-sensitive and culture-specific lexical test of Labrador Inuttitut (a dialect of Inuktitut, an Eskimo-Aleut language). This process presented numerous challenges, from choosing citation forms in a polysynthetic language to dealing with a lack of word frequency…

This position paper brings youth perspectives to the forefront of academic discourse about language shift and linguistic identity, framed in the larger intersecting conversations about language endangerment, maintenance and revitalization, the breakdown and rebuilding of intergenerational transmission, and the changing late modern landscapes in…

Many educators have sung the praises of Indian Education for All, Montana's constitutional mandate, and heard the successes of Montana's Indigenous language revitalization efforts which reverberate around the globe. Teaching Indigenous languages is especially, challenging since there are limited numbers of fluent speakers and scarce resources…

This co-authored paper offers Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal perspectives on the emergence of urban/nature/child pedagogies in a project to reclaim remnant woodlands. Set in the context of indigenous issues explored in a special edition of the journal on land based education, the paper engages critically with a claim by a group of ecologists, that…

The Vanuatu government has recently implemented a policy of vernacular literacy. Children are now to receive the first three years of schooling in a vernacular language. Needless to say, in a country with less than 300,000 people [Vanuatu National Statistics Office 2016 Accessed January 4, 2016. http://vnso.gov.vu/] and more than 100 indigenous…

The number of heritage language learners in American universities is increasing each year. Similar to monolingual students, this subgroup of learners is required to complete university level "foreign language" coursework, which can be a source of anxiety. Particularly, this subgroup of learners may experience high levels of anxiety due…

It's one of the ironies of United States culture: We love our history as "a nation of immigrants," but at the same time, we're conflicted about immigration and the changes it brings. In this article, Patricia Gándara examines the research on one area of debate: whether multilingualism should be considered a problem to be fixed, or a…

This qualitative study investigates immigrant mothers' beliefs and practices toward supporting maintenance of their children's heritage language (HL) in the context of transnationalism. The data are primarily drawn from formal and informal interviews and observations of six mothers who immigrated to the United States from Japan and Korea. The…

The research examines the effects of a bilingual pedagogical program (French/Tahitian) on the acquisition of oral and written French as well as the Tahitian language itself in primary schools in French Polynesia. 125 children divided into an experimental group (partially schooled in Tahitian for 300 min per week) and a control group (schooled in…

Many Chinese families face many difficulties in maintaining their heritage language for their children in English-dominant societies. This article first looks at the losses from monolingualism and benefits of bilingualism. Then, it explores the common methods used today in teaching Chinese. We conclude that families and community play an…

The article theorizes the possibilities of a decolonizing methodology in a reading of David Bouchard's Cree-English dual language picture books "Nokum is My Teacher" and "The Drum Calls Softly." Paulo Freire's (1971) call to educators to become teacher-learners and Luis Urrieta Jr.'s (2007) concept of "figured worlds"…