In this article, we provide an overview of the last twenty years of research on Indigenous sign languages, deaf community sign languages, co-speech gesture, and multimodal communication in the Australian context. From a global perspective, research on sign languages and on the gestures that normally accompany speech has been used as the basis for…

This paper explores how "English learners (ELs)" or who we prefer to call "multilingual learners" are labeled and positioned in policy documents and leading education research documents respectively. Attending to the urgent call for serving the growing number of linguistically and culturally diverse learners, this study delves…

With increasing cultural and linguistic diversity in today's classrooms, a growing body of research continues to explore the varied ways in which digital tools and multiple modalities can tap into emergent bilingual students' academic and linguistic strengths. To understand the empirical landscape of this growing research, the authors…

While recent literacy research shows an increasing uptake in multimodal literacies, there remains a disjunction between multimodal literacy teaching and assessment. This paper offers a critical review of assessment in the context of teaching multimodal literacies and begins by reviewing the notion of literacy and reframing assessment in…

One of the goals of foreign language (FL) education is to produce intercultural speakers. Telecollaboration can act as a catalyst for promoting language skills development, intercultural communicative competence (ICC), and multiple literacies. The significance of multimodal communicative competence (MCC) on the success or failure of a…

Drawing on 95 text histories from a longitudinal project on writing for publication in 4 national contexts, this article analyses the language ideologies enacted in referees' and editors' comments on articles submitted for publication in English-medium "international" journals. It considers how orientations to "English,"…

Many K-12 teachers struggle to meet the needs of diverse learners as school reforms promote new disciplinary literacy requirements. In response, language education scholars have argued that teachers must develop "disciplinary linguistic knowledge" (DLK), or an understanding of language in their content area and an ability to design…

This paper surveys the research methods and approaches used in the multidisciplinary field of applied language studies or language education over the last fourty years. Drawing on insights gained in psycho- and sociolinguistics, educational linguistics and linguistic anthropology with regard to language and culture, it is organized around five…

Contrasts the situation of the French language and of sociolinguistic research in France and in Canada. (AM)

This article discusses kinesics, the study of gesture and facial expression in language and shows the role that gestures play in language systems, evaluates them as a full-fledged semiotic system, and shows the value of them in the foreign- language classroom. (Author/JL)

Argues that the meaning of the words of a language other than one's mother tongue lies neither in text nor picture but in the explanations provided to learners during acquisition of the language. Suggests that what is important in developing critical thinking in a second language is that concepts are supported with relevant discussions and…