Chinese immersion programs have been increasingly popular in US schools. However, we have insufficient data on young English-speaking children's acquisition of Chinese as a second language in these programs, and specifically on social contextual variables systematically promoting or hindering Chinese language use. Taking a variationist…

In this article we investigate the transparency of language in learning place value in either a Southern African indigenous language (isiXhosa, Setswana, Oshiwambo or Emakhuwa) or a European-based language (Afrikaans, English, German or Portuguese). Since language is a key mediator in developing place value understanding, it is important to…

Statistical learning is a learning mechanism that does not directly depend on knowledge of a language but predicts language and literacy outcomes for children and adults. Research linking statistical learning and literacy has not addressed a common educational context in primary schools worldwide: children who first learn to read in their second…

This study investigates the longitudinal development of language attitudes towards Catalan and Spanish over a five-year period in the transition from primary to secondary education of a sample of students (N = 1,143) in Catalonia and Aragon. Two research questions were investigated: (1) How do language attitudes develop over time? and (2) How do…

This article compares metalinguistic awareness among emerging bilingual and multilingual learners of English in Norwegian primary school. Participants were 120 students in grades 5-7 (aged 10-13) attending mainstream English classes in Norway and were divided into three groups based on a linguistic background questionnaire: an L1 Norwegian group,…

The main goal of this paper is to suggest a combination of data analyses -- notably generalized additive models, time-series clustering methodology, visual methods for significance testing and qualitative analyses -- that relate to Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST). To this end, we report on findings from a larger project conducted in a…

The amount of language input bilingual children receive influences their language acquisition. This three-year quasi-longitudinal study determined the extent home language input influences measures of expressive and receptive English vocabulary among Spanish-English school-age bilingual children. The study also determined whether a relationship…

This article uses cognitive measures previously developed within linguistic relativity research to explore the thinking patterns of Yucatec Maya-Spanish bilingual children in the Yucatan peninsula. These measures were designed to detect cognitive patterns associated with specific language patterns. Here, these measures are used to test whether 12…

This paper reports on a qualitative study of 35 Chinese primary school students' needs of translanguaging in English classrooms where speaking Chinese is officially not favored. The author collected data through classroom observation, audio recordings, field notes, and semi-structured interviews. The analysis revealed that driven by the unknown…

This article draws on data from a British Council-funded project which aimed both to compare global early English language learning (EELL) pedagogic practices in 2020 with those in 2010 and to investigate current EELL teaching and learning in primary schools. The project had an explicit focus on classroom language practice, that is, the languages…

Family-school engagement has been found to influence students' emotional and mental well-being. Meanwhile, culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) families have often been found to perceive and respond to engagement efforts differently than Euro-American families. The unique needs of emergent bilinguals, a subsample of the CLD community,…

While teachers value cultural and linguistic diversity, they see the benefits of speaking different languages "in the future tense," feeling it hard to specify how language differences positively impact students' learning in the present. This study explores teachers' temporal perceptions of language differences, specifically focusing on…

A compulsory foreign language in Finland starts now in Grade 1 instead of Grade 3. The change has forced teachers to adopt new teaching methods. As young learners are not yet literate, teaching should focus on oral skills and awareness of diversity. Video data from 19 early foreign language lessons of five English, German, or French teachers in…

For many children in Flanders, Belgium, the language of instruction is not their first language. Allowing children to use their heritage languages in the classroom has been argued to have functional and socioemotional benefits. In two exploratory studies, we introduced a multilingual task in four classrooms across three linguistically and socially…

The world has become seemingly smaller with the advancements of technologies, instead of taking days to receive a written letter, it takes seconds to get an email. While the connection is obvious there still seems to be a barrier between the majority of the world's population: Language. Though it seems irrelevant in people's small communities, the…