The significance of the mother tongue, and particularly mother tongue education, is widely acknowledged across the world. This study aims to investigate mother tongue attitudes of students, teachers, parents, and community members in Manipur. A self-report survey was used to collect data from 463 participants, and an exploratory factor analysis…

This article examines teacher ideologies and multilingual practices in teaching Arabic as a heritage language in the USA. Using indexicality and its nexus to language ideologies, it identifies the key index values assigned to Standard Arabic (SA) and how these shape teacher positioning for teaching Arabic heritage. The article also analyzes the…

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…

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…

This article seeks to understand the challenges of literacy acquisition under the Thematic Curriculum reform in Uganda, which introduced Mother Tongue instruction in lower primary. We compare teachers' perspectives from two central districts using Luganda and two peripheral districts using Ateso, drawing on a multi-layered approach to understand…

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…

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…

Sweden is often commended for the inclusion of home languages in the formal education system: both mother tongue instruction (where a pupil's home language is taught as an optional school subject) and study guidance (where a pupil is given content support in their home language or prior language of schooling) are offered. Still, while many…

As educators can open and close implementational and ideological spaces for bilingualism, they are language policy agents. Concurrently, their language ideologies are also informed and shaped by dominant discourses such as the discourse of accountability and neoliberalism. Inspired by ethnographic studies, this qualitative study explored the…

Heritage language education is not included in the national curriculum in England, and therefore formal learning and teaching of heritage languages are primarily achieved through complementary schools, which are part-time, community-led and linked to various ethnic and national backgrounds. This study focuses on Arabic complementary schools and…

Learning Mandarin Chinese as a heritage or additional language at Chinese complementary schools has long been a tradition for many Asian Canadians. However, research that looks at teachers' experiences and perceptions in Canadian settings, especially the power dynamics embedded in biliteracy development at complementary schools, is scant.…

Increasing migration-induced language diversity is putting pressure on the teaching of regional and minority languages in official bi- or multilingual regions. This study presents an in-depth analysis of teachers' and teacher trainers' beliefs and views towards language awareness and translanguaging approaches as possible ways to enhance pupils'…

For diasporic communities, beyond the obvious dichotomy between the home language and the language used by the host community, there lie the complexities of language use and language ideologies related to standard and non-standard versions spoken by the community members. These complexities galvanise various attitudes performed through linguistic…

Given the loss of heritage languages due to assimilation of the dominant English language in U.S. society within three generations of migration to the U.S. (Wiley & Valdes, 2000), it is of paramount importance to examine how we can maintain and enhance heritage languages. Humor is a pragmatic tool which one can utilize to increase…

Despite research evidence showing that home language maintenance is important both individually and societally, the task of managing and encouraging it has traditionally fallen to minority language communities and families, tending to lead to inter-generational language shift. Teachers' discourses about responsibilities for language maintenance,…