The present article examines the relationship between age and dominance in bilingual populations. Age in bilingualism is understood as the point in development at which second language (L2) acquisition begins and as the chronological age of users of two languages. Age of acquisition (AoA) is a factor in determining which of a bilingual's two…

Learning to talk about motion in a second language is very difficult because it involves restructuring deeply entrenched patterns from the first language. In this paper we argue that statistical learning can explain why L2 learners are only partially successful in restructuring their second language grammars. We explore to what extent L2 learners…

In this report the authors signal the plurilingual nature of children's and teachers' learning and teaching experiences. Plurilingualism introduces a dynamic view of bilingualism in educational settings and refers to an individual's ability to draw upon her/his total language resources for learning and teaching (Cummins & Early, 2011; Garcia…

This article discusses the findings of an empirical study that investigated the writing practices in a multilingual, rural, fourth-grade classroom in Kenya. The study was undergirded by Bakhtin's heteroglossia. Analysis of texts indicated that these emergent multilinguals used multiple semiotic resources to maximize the chances of meeting the…

Mexicanos/Chicanos in the United States have historically suffered derision and mistreatment by the mainstream culture because of their use of nonstandard Spanish and English, as well as codeswitching (alternating between two or more languages or language varieties). In the field of education, codeswitching and the use of nonstandard English and…

In this paper the incidental language acquisition of 11-year-old Flemish children (n = 30) who have not received any formal English instruction is investigated. The study looks into children's English proficiency and the learner characteristics that can be associated with it. In order to measure the children's English proficiency, a receptive…

In Canada, there is a rising population of K-12 students who speak neither French nor English at home, and who are sometimes expected to learn both of the country's official languages in school. Applying the lenses of critical theory and positioning theory, this study uses questionnaire and interview data to frame considerations to explore how…

This study aims to further the understanding of first language (L1) lexical transfer within the context of L1 Chinese learners of English. Previous transfer research has often focused on a small subset of grammar errors, without examining how lexical choices, especially in collocations and multi-word units (MWU), might have been influenced by L1…

This dissertation investigates L2 student language production, task-based instruction, and teachers' scaffolding strategies in two special EFL classes in a Vietnamese university. Two English teachers and 73 students were studied as they participated in a nationwide educational project known as the Advanced Curriculum (AC), an initiative launched…

Spanish-speaking parents choose to enroll their children in either an English only or English-Spanish dual immersion program when presented with both choices. This ethnographic study explored parent's perceptions of the purpose, advantages, and disadvantages of learning in school in English only or in a dual English-Spanish. Through focus group…

This paper is a critical ethnography of the schooling experiences of 5 recent immigrants attending dual immersion classes in an elementary school located near El Paso, Texas where the separation of languages is a policy, and language is said to be used as a resource to motivate learning when working cooperatively (Adelman Reyes, 2007; Collier…

This study investigates how three teachers differed in the amount of first language (L1; here, English) they used during teacher-led instruction in a foreign language (FL; here, German) class and whether differences in the three teachers' L1 were associated with similar differences in their respective students' L1 use, both during teacher-led…

Linguistics has long recognised that figurative language in the form of metaphorical expressions structures and communicates attitudes towards the ideas and concepts being expressed and that multilingual students also employ linguistic figures frequently in their writing. In this study, multilingual students use figurative language to both…

Twenty-first Century era has brought great challenges in Indonesian education system, i.e. the increasing demand for the students to have foreign language skills to succeed in global world competition. Particularly in the higher education, the awareness of learning English leads some lecturers in Accounting Department Faculty of Economics State…

This study examined how a Korean family with temporary immigrant status in the United States employed ideological discourses on languages to make sense of their experiences. The parents initially accepted but later rejected ideologies on children's learning of English. English-as-a-legitimate-language ideology in the United States and…