This article compares the use of discourse markers (DMs) in Italian as a second language (L2) produced by Belgian-Dutch learners, with the DMs produced by Italian native (L1) speakers. The quantitative analysis of the data shows that L1 speakers produce more DMs than L2 speakers, whereas the comparison between the levels of proficiency in L2…

We investigated the acquisition of Hindi split ergativity (zero or "-ne" marking) and Hindi differential object marking (DOM; zero or "-ko" marking) by L1 speakers of Dutch. Both grammatical phenomena are conditioned by multiple syntactic and semantic features. On a descriptive level, the study aims to examine when and how…

Educational tracking has been studied abundantly in previous research. However, the transitions of Newly Arrived Migrant Students (NAMS) to these (tracked) educational settings are understudied. To facilitate the transition of NAMS to regular secondary education, many countries organise reception classes. This is a separate form of education for…

Background: In order to continue educational provision during the COVID-19 pandemic, many education systems switched to some form of Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) in 2020. Research suggests that this may have disproportionately affected students from underprivileged communities. In this context, there is, therefore, a pressing need to consider…

The literature strongly emphasises the importance of constructive relationships between parents and their children's caregivers. However, minimal empirical research has investigated relationships between language minority parents and caregivers in childcare. This large-scale study seeks to fill this gap by exploring the quality of the language…

Developing emotional competence during childhood is critical because it is a significant resource for building psychological well-being, social relationships and even school achievement. Language plays an important role in fostering emotional competence among monolingual children but for bilingual children, the relationship between culture,…

This study examines how different stakeholders perceive the implementation of language education policy. Even though policies often prioritize a certain solution to the policy problem, the different stakeholders that are involved in the process of policy design and implementation may interpret them differently (Spillane et al., 2002). This, in…

This paper explores the longitudinal development of the phrasicon (i.e. phraseological lexicon) of French-speaking learners of Dutch in two different educational settings: Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and traditional foreign language learning contexts (non-CLIL). We followed 195 pupils and analyzed a corpus of 390 written texts…

This article explores how organizational mobility and foreign nationality affect a researcher's chances of an internal career promotion in university systems that do not have rules preventing inbreeding and where teaching occurs mostly not in English but a local language. As a case study, we have examined the Flemish university system, the Dutch…

The current study quantitatively applies Spolsky's triangular framework of language policy, including beliefs, practices, and management, to the family domain by investigating language policy in multilingual families in Belgium's Flemish Community. Firstly, we examine whether the three components in fact call for an independent description and…

Whereas Standard Dutch only distinguishes between two adnominal grammatical genders, substandard varieties of Belgian Dutch distinguish between three such genders. German, too, distinguishes between three genders. Nevertheless, when assigning gender to German nouns with Dutch cognates, speakers of Belgian Dutch are strongly influenced by Standard…

In response to the increasing linguistic diversity in educational settings resulting from migration waves into the Global North, this study delves into the beliefs of secondary teachers regarding multilingualism within predominantly monolingual policy schools in Flanders, Belgium. Despite the recognized benefits of multilingual pedagogies,…

The aim of the present article is to provide an overview of the current state of affairs regarding foreign language education and bilingual education in the different parts of Belgium. In a brief historical contextualisation, we explain how language education in Belgium has been shaped by the country's political and economic history, which has led…

Despite its non-elitist goals, there is growing concern over the potentially elitist nature of content and language integrated learning (CLIL) programmes in English. Previous European studies have reported more advantaged pupils' profiles in these programmes compared to regular programmes. It is unclear from the literature however which pupils…

The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) is a widely used test of receptive vocabulary, but no researchers to date have examined the performance of low-educated, low-literate L2 adults, or compared these individuals' performances to their more highly educated peers. In this study, we used many-facet Rasch analysis and mixed-effects linear…