The following interview was conducted with Catherine Elder in spring of 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic. Cathie has had a varied career in language testing, including work at universities in Australia and New Zealand and at the Language Testing Resource Center in Melbourne. In this interview, Cathie shares some highlights of her somewhat…

This article argues for the value of heritage language programs and the micro-level language policies that support them, focusing on a case study of a program in the USA to make this argument. We also argue for the importance of recognizing students' heritage languages, cultures, and individual goals and identities in mainstream school programs.…

The vitality of most Indigenous languages in North America, like minority languages in many parts of the world, is at risk due to the pressures of majority languages and cultures. The transmission of Indigenous languages through school-based programs is a wide-spread approach to maintaining and revitalizing threatened languages in Canada and the…

This paper outlines work undertaken by FIPLV as an affiliate of UNESCO in the development of a document outlining linguistic human rights. The paper examines how subsequent drafts have been modified and identifies some of the difficulties experienced in developing the drafts. After more than two decades of work, the process is still incomplete.…

Much information of interest to bilingual education policymakers has emerged from basic research on language learning, bilingualism, and cognition. Among the conclusions drawn from it are the following: (1) bilingual education is superior to submersion education in many contexts;(2) one major bilingual education goal should be development of the…

The report summarizes findings of research activities conducted over 2 years by the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) on the mother tongue and English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) literacy. The first section provides a review of existing literature in native language literacy for adults, including a summary of surveys, review of studies on native…

This report of a British government task force investigates the educational and policy needs for public school native language instruction for ethnic minority groups in the United Kingdom. An introductory section examines the educational policy context, rationale for minority language instruction, needs assessment and recommendations for action,…

A statement of national policy on languages for Australia, submitted for government consideration in response to official concern, is presented. It begins with an introductory section on the importance of language, and then provides a rationale for national language policy formulation in Australia's varied language context. A section on policy…