The UK is linguistically rich but faces a reducing uptake of language learning in schools, as pupils feel more withdrawn and disinterested in learning an additional language to English. A key component in many linguistic minority communities to preserve their language is complementary schooling (CS), which has wide-ranging educational and societal…

The benefits of learning and retaining heritage languages are well documented in the literature. Chinese heritage language learners' commitment to their heritage language learning has gained significant research ground in social psychological and post-structural schools, with empirical evidence predominantly emerging from the North American…

This article draws on research carried out in a Chinese complementary school in Scotland. The research focused on children's experience of learning to read Chinese and on the strategies that they used to support their learning. Here, I provide an account of one particular aspect of this research, namely the creation of a dialogic space for…

Language learning and teaching of endangered languages have many features and needs that are quite different from the teaching of world languages. Groups whose languages are endangered try to turn language loss around; many new language teaching and learning strategies are emerging, to suit the special needs and goals of language revitalization.…

Despite the proliferation of research in heritage language (HL) education, pedagogically based research that examines teacher education practice for promoting critical reflection of HL teachers is sparse. This article describes how preservice teachers working in community-based HL schools changed their views of HL identity during their…

Researchers have shown that the maintenance of a minority language has positive effects on the minority students' view of self, educational attainment, and career opportunities (Cho 2000; Wright and Taylor 1995). In the research for this article, however, we found that such a focus on the effects of heritage-language education on the students is…

This paper explores the social and cultural knowledge embedded in the textbooks for language and literacy education in a Chinese heritage language school, the Zhonguo School, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It examines how Chinese language arts textbooks introduce the child reader to cultural knowledge considered legitimate and valued in China as…

Goldsmiths College is one of a number of providers of initial teacher education to have introduced courses in community/heritage languages in the UK in recent years. Students taking the course gain experience in working with a wide range of learners across different sectors (state maintained, independent and complementary). This study is based on…

The indigenisation and internationalisation of Taiwan emerged as issues of national concern as a result of the democratisation of politics in the late 1980s which profoundly changed the sociopolitical and economic climate. One manifestation of these changes was "new" language-in-education policies. These were the…

This paper explores the effectiveness of initial vernacular education for successful transfer to English. The data is drawn from the personal, innovative experiences of a local vernacular elementary school teacher in Papua New Guinea, who helped individual children to gain literacy skills in the local vernacular. As a result, the children were…

Discusses the historical perspective relating to current problems facing mother tongue instruction in Sierra Leone and examines post-independence policies to highlight the institutional bases of mother tongue education and to consider causes of inertia and negative attitudes towards it since independence. (Author/VWL)

Explores the development of a multicultural literacy project designed to develop literacy both in English and the students' individual native languages. The intervention fostered collaborative relationships among researchers, teachers, parents, and students. (37 references) (Author/CK)