Mother Tongue Education (MTE), despite being the most reliable method of learning, is a challenge for the African countries that fail to implement MTE policies due to lack of resources, stakeholders' attitudes towards mother tongues, and lack of political will. Keeping in view the plight of the primary implementers of such policies, hence, this…

In the Yoruba community, proverbs are regarded as Yoruba philosophy repository, with wisdom, brevity, criticality, and stored experience that are believed to be a viable tool of acquiring the language. Hinging on reversing language shift model theory, the study investigated: (a) whether Yoruba proverbs are effective in the acquisition of Yoruba…

Bilingual parents must often make difficult and complex choices about which languages to use with their children. While existing research has explored family language practices and attitudes within certain language communities, the experiences of African parents are conspicuously absent from the literature. This study explores factors influencing…

Judicial discourse can grant or deprive liberty to litigants. It is, therefore, important to ensure fair hearing during trials and even more as courtrooms have become multilingual settings. In the Court of First Instance of Bafoussam, French (one of the official languages of Cameroon) often come into contact with more than 250 national languages.…

In most universities in South Africa, English is still preferred as the medium of instruction. However, most schools in South Africa have adopted a home-language education approach. Those school students then have a lower English proficiency compared to other students from English schools. Providing these students with instructional assistance…

The current article studies the competencies of plurilingual students and how these competencies are exploited in the learning of French as a Foreign Language. Adopting a translanguaging theoretical approach, we argue that learners of foreign languages who already speak at least one other language have some linguistic competencies which manifest…

This research, conducted at a major university in Tanzania, investigated the personal experiences of multilingual students vis-à-vis the government's language policy requiring Swahili as the language of instruction (LoI) at the primary level and English at the secondary level. The participants, who spoke 25 different languages as their L1, were…

Uganda's "early exit" language policy positions African languages ambiguously in public education provision. Runyoro-Rutooro and Runyankore-Rukiga are spoken in Western Uganda in public spaces where translanguaging happens as a matter of course. These languages are heard at pre-primary and lower primary levels but are superseded by…

The presence of Africans in China has been phenomenal since the late 1990s. In recent years, there has been a dramatic uptick in people from Africa coming to the major cities of China such as Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau, Yiwu, Shanghai, and Beijing. They are in the process of building linguistic, cultural, and economic bridges between their source…

Language-in-education policies in Africa are believed to be a factor of poor quality education on the continent as languages learners are not conversant with continue to take the lead as languages of teaching and learning. This paper explores the experience of teachers and learners in Rwanda transitioning from Kinyarwanda to English as a medium of…

The National Policy on Education (NPE) in Nigeria stipulates that every child should be taught in the language of its immediate environment in the first three years of elementary education. This paper examines the NPE as it affects elementary schools in Ogu-speaking communities in Southwestern Nigeria. Using the research instruments of interviews…

The U.S. government encourages the study of critical languages spoken in geographic areas of strategic importance to U.S. national security and the global economy through a variety of discretionary grants and scholarship programs. U.S. students are traditionally underrepresented in the study of these languages; however, many of the nation's K-12…

The World Bank's focus on foundational skills requires that issues of language and Language of Instruction be brought to the forefront of education policy discussions. Poor Language of Instruction policies harm learning, access, equity, cost-effectiveness, and inclusion. Yet nearly 37% of students in low- and middle-income countries are taught in…

Framed by decolonial theory, this paper explores how language and literacy ideologies, including Anglonormativity, or the expectation that children should be proficient in a standardised version of English and are deficient if not, shape language and literacy practices in South African classrooms. While not legitimised, the use of fluid language…

The primary goal of language teaching is to afford learners, proficiency in communicating in the target language, self-development as well as intercultural understanding of languages in the learning process. The teacher is therefore charged with the task of selecting appropriate strategies to effectively achieve his pedagogic goals, one of which…