Singapore is an ethnically, linguistically, and culturally diverse nation-state that has always practiced deliberate language policy and planning. The bilingual education policy, introduced shortly after the young nation's independence has led to the emergence of English-knowing bilinguals who are proficient in both English and their ethnically…

"A Dictionary of Contemporary Figurative Language" is meant to be an appendix to an earlier, more comprehensive work: ED648945, "A Dictionary and Thesaurus of Contemporary Figurative Language and Metaphor 2024." This appendix simply updates the dictionary of that previous work to better reflect the language used during the 2024…

The practices of sorting things out and bringing things together, which I summarise under the term relanguaging, sit between fluid, situated languaging practices and the administrative standard grid in education that relies on bounded, named languages. Relanguaging, I argue, was invisible to socio- and applied linguists' analytical vision because…

Language tests, including international high-stakes English proficiency tests widely used around the world, are to be viewed as ideological constructs connected with power relations and center-periphery demarcations at different social levels. In this paper, we examine the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) as an instance of…

This paper is based within the framework of step-by-step approach to teaching legal translation. The underlying philosophy behind this approach is that when specific aspects of legal translations are tackled in isolation and trainees become aware of the pitfalls involved and the possible solutions, this helps them in further training as well as in…

University classrooms are increasingly populated by students with diverse nationalities and native languages (L1). The growing number of students in English-led classrooms who speak English as a second or lower language (L2) may face added difficulties in understanding the specific task objectives or directions, as explained by native-…

In Hong Kong, Chinese and English are considered separate mediums of instruction. English immersion is expected for schools that teach with English as the medium of instruction, and direct instruction in Chinese is often used to teach English in Chinese medium schools. Evidently, a great divide persists in the Hong Kong government curriculum. In…

Language and learning norms constitute the biggest constraint for refugee learners attempting to access education in Uganda because they struggle to demonstrate competencies in English despite acquiring them in their local language (Arabic, French, or Swahili). Learners are assigned to lower levels, contributing to misalignment between their…

An increasing body of research has explored patterns of interaction and peer support among young learners. Although some studies suggest that young learners can engage in collaboration when interacting on tasks, other studies indicate the opposite. Moreover, despite the claims that peer collaboration is conducive to learning, studies have not paid…

The aim of this personal reflection is to revisit the major concepts that have informed my academic research in the area of applied linguistics and second language development, and show how my overall pedagogical approach has evolved, thanks to the contribution of Vygotsky's sociocultural theory (SCT). The main focus of this paper is on the…

The paper focuses on the communication of three bilingual couples, each speaking a different lingua franca (LF). Positioning theory offers a methodological framework to explain language choice in interactive positioning within personal contacts. A comparative view of the couples' storylines benefits from the differences between them. The analysis…

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,…

Mother-tongue education has increasingly become a keyword in formulations of development goals, especially the Sustainable Development Goals (2015). Achievement of these goals acquires a grave sense of urgency in light of the ever-increasing threat to the very fabric of our linguistic diversity. The basic premise of this article is that Gandhian…

This special issue revisits a classic topic in linguistic theory, A-bar movement, applied to developing and bilingual grammars. We claim that A-bar movement, or filler-gap dependencies, is still the quintessential linguistic phenomenon to illustrate the interaction between the biological endowment, the experience with language (past and present),…

It is widely accepted that written corrective feedback (WCF) is an effective tool for helping learners develop their L2 knowledge. Yet, it remains inconclusive as to which type of WCF can best facilitate L2 learning. In recent years, many second language acquisition (SLA) researchers agree that "direct" and "focused" WCF may be…