This study examined the influence of cognate status and language distance on simultaneous bilingual children's vocabulary acquisition. It aimed to tease apart effects of word-level similarities and language-level similarities, while also exploring the role of individual-level variation in age, exposure, and nontarget language proficiency. Children…

This study investigated whether second language (L2) classroom instruction that incorporates a principled approach into the use of the first language (L1) by students and instructors has an effect on beginning learners' development of L2 speaking and writing proficiency, compared to L2-only instruction, over the course of one semester.…

Despite the unique status of English as a super-power among foreign languages in Korea, and researchers' increasing interest in Korean parents' zeal for achieving their children's early bilingualism and willingness to invest heavily in private English education outside of school, insufficient attention has been paid to the role of parental…

Globally, there has been increasing adaptation of curricula frameworks in early childhood education, providing overarching principles of practice rather than subject specific templates for teaching and learning. While such a movement is to be commended as supporting a socio-cultural approach in meeting each child's unique social and cultural…

In this personal reflection, Sonia Nieto recounts the lessons she learned about language and literacy from learning to speak Spanish and then English; to reading and writing; and the impact of these lessons on her identity, teaching, research, and life; and, more broadly, on the fields of education and literacy.

This is a qualitative case study that explores conversational interactions during book-reading practices in a Mandarin-speaking Chinese American family between the mother and her two young children. The study employs a sociocultural lens and the concept of translanguaging to describe the characteristics of interactional practices during book…

The Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) cycle (teachers' initiation, students' response and teachers' feedback) has been a key focus in studies of second language classroom interaction and participation. This paper aims to examine the influence of the first language (L1) in the Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) cycle commonly appearing in…

Scholars have consistently theorised that language ideologies can influence the ways in which bilingual speakers in minority language settings identify and engage with the linguistic varieties available to them. Research conducted by the author examined the interplay of language use and ideologies among a purposive sample of adults who started in…

This article is a sharing of emergent ideas about the potential role of languages in teacher education (TE) programmes in multilingual contexts in India. Languages play a critical role in TE programmes where they shape both the learning as well as the future teaching of prospective teachers. This role acquires particular significance in…

This paper seeks to examine the role of the official and "de facto" languages of anglophone Caribbean islands such as Jamaica. In reflecting on their statuses as users of language, tertiary level students registered in a Year One Performing Arts Program provided much insights into the interplay of both languages that coexist in society…

While Hulk and Muller (2000) predict that the direction of cross-linguistic syntactic influence is unidirectional when the construction involves syntax-pragmatics interface and surface overlap between two languages, they explicitly rule out language dominance as a factor involved. This study questions their latter claim and argues that the syntax…

Diagnosing specific language impairment (SLI) in monolingual children is a complex task, with some controversy regarding criteria. Diagnosis of SLI in bilinguals is made more complex by the lack of standardized assessments and poor understanding of clinical markers in languages other than English. There is an added complexity when one of the…

In this article, we outline the differences between a monolingual and multilingual orientation to language and language acquisition. The increasing contact between languages in the context of globalization motivates such a shift of paradigms. Multilingual communicative practices have remained vibrant in non-western communities for a long time. We…

This paper contains three parts. In the first part, what it means to be bilingual in sign language and the spoken (majority) language is explained, and similarities as well as differences with hearing bilinguals are discussed. The second part examines the biculturalism of deaf people. Like hearing biculturals, they take part, to varying degrees,…

The widespread implementation of newborn hearing screening and advances in amplification technologies (including cochlear implants) have fundamentally changed the educational landscape for deaf learners. These changes are discussed in terms of their impact on sign bilingual education programs with a focus on the relationships between language and…