Upholding a critical, ethical, multilingual stance presents numerous challenges amidst a myriad of institutional, infrastructural, and societal pressures. Despite significant breakthroughs, such as translanguaging theories and pedagogies and the evolution of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) principles, the journey towards a more inclusive and…

Despite the rapid growth of English Medium Instruction (EMI) programmes around the globe, the language goals in such programmes have not been clearly defined, making it difficult to evaluate their success. Accordingly, our paper reports on a study that attempted to identify the language goals, operationalised as the vocabulary expected of…

The sentence repetition (SR) test is considered as a promising diagnostic tool for detecting language proficiency in monolingual learners, but less is known about its potential to identify dual language learners' (DLLs) linguistic proficiency. Considering that challenges with language learning, such as developmental language disorders (DLDs), is…

English-Medium Instruction (EMI) practices in the People's Republic of China (PRC) are still emerging and in need of further empirical investigation, in comparison to European countries. Existing research in the Asian context is mainly based on students' and teachers' perceptions and policy-related concerns. There is a remarkable lack of studies…

Background: Children in India are among the lowest performing students on international reading comprehension and writing assessments. Oral language instruction may improve these literacy outcomes. Aim: This pilot study investigated whether a multi-tiered system of language support (MTSLS) improved oral narrative language comprehension, reading…

This study examined the use of non-standard English features in 16-year-old students' writing in the UK. Adopting a diachronic approach to the investigation of students' written production, the study sought to identify changes in students' use of non-standard English over the course of a decade, specifically from 2004 to 2014. It involved an…

It is common practice for K-12 schools to assess multilingual students' language proficiency to determine language support program placement. Because such programs can provide essential scaffolding, the policies guiding these assessments merit careful consideration. It is well accepted that quality assessments must be valid (representative of the…

The construct of language competence lies at the heart of language education, underpinning key processes such as language teaching and language assessment. Acknowledging its prominent position in the field of language education and seeking to illuminate its nature, this study attempted to trace the historical trajectory of the construct of…

The assessments designed for and analyzed in this study used a task-based language design template rooted in theories of language reflecting heteroglossic language practices and funds of knowledge learning theories, which were understood as transforming classroom teaching, learning, and assessment through continua of biliteracy lenses. Using a…

This paper reports on an investigation into the efficacy of a teacher preparation programme that introduced the teaching of African languages to speakers of other African languages in order to produce multi-competent and multi-vocal teachers. A mixed method approach was used to elicit from a pool of 60 (30 experimental; 30 control group)…

This paper proposes a personalised instructional strategy, "student-selected vocabulary," to facilitate secondary school students' vocabulary building. It then reports how this personalised instructional strategy was implemented and evaluated through a teacher-led intervention study of 57 low-achieving Hong Kong secondary school…

The classroom is an important context of second language learning for language minority children. Teachers are responsible for creating good learning opportunities by securing language use well adjusted to the children's level of comprehension. Thus, teachers should have realistic expectations of this. The purpose of the research is to increase…

This paper reports on an ESRC and British Telecom funded study which explored the teaching of collaborative talk in the secondary English classroom. While research signals the crucial role of the teacher in promoting dialogic pedagogies, less specific attention has been given to how teacher discourse can shape the development of students'…

The Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT) is widely used to assess the vocabulary size of second-language learners of English. The test assesses learners' knowledge of words of different frequencies within general English and of high-frequency words within academic texts. We used the VLT to measure the English vocabulary size of Chinese university students…

The aim of this study was to investigate vocabulary knowledge and growth across two different language-learning programmes in Hong Kong. The two programmes compared were English immersion programmes (IM) and regular English second-language programmes (RL2). While previous research has identified an overall advantage to IM with respect to language…