Language acquisition and Language Maintenance (LM) both depend on ample opportunity and motivation. Currently, many national language societies are undergoing Language Shift (LS) to English, impacting their acquisition as first (L1) and possibly even more as second (L2) language. This study interviewed 44 adolescents, including 24 L1 and 20 L2…

A substantial body of research has examined the role of English in South Africans' linguistic repertoires. Many of these studies have investigated whether a language shift towards English might be underway among first-language (L1) speakers of the indigenous languages. At the same time, the role of English in the repertoires of L1 English speakers…

As a well documented example of language planning that links national unity with language practice and has resulted in systemic attempts to linguistically and culturally assimilate its Kurdish populations, the Turkish national context has adopted standard language ideologies since its founding. Previous research has highlighted efforts by Kurdish…

This study reports on an investigation into the perspectives of different stakeholders (e.g. administrators, teachers, students, and parents) towards motivations for introducing English as a medium of instruction (EMI) policy in low-resourced public schools, serving minoritized students, and language ideologies that form its practices. Framed…

A challenge in designing tests is ensuring fairness for all test takers. Pupils who are not yet sufficiently proficient in the language of schooling taking a test that was designed for native speakers is unfair, since they will not be able to demonstrate their true abilities (Abedi, J., and C. Lord. 2001. "The Language Factor in Mathematics…

This article focuses on mother tongue teaching in Arabic, Dari, Pashto and Somali as it is practised in a linguistically diverse primary school in Denmark. The article draws on a linguistic ethnography of language teaching across the curriculum, and the analysis focuses on three mother tongue teachers. Drawing on classroom observations and…

Educational issues in relation to ethnicity and language education policies have been underexplored in Asian contexts. In particular, issues related to ethnic and linguistic minority students have not received much attention in the post-colonial context of Hong Kong. This paper highlights challenges and tensions faced by Nepali ethnic minority…

We draw on Rampton's "Crossing: Language and Ethnicity Among Adolescents" (2014. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge) notion of "crossing" to explore contestations in ethnolinguistic, cultural and racial affiliations at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), a university built for "Coloureds" in apartheid South Africa, but…

European higher education institutions are in general highly committed to internationalisation, seeing it as providing ways into the global education market, as an indicator of academic excellence, and for generating income. In multilingual settings, minority languages are not always given adequate consideration in this process and may be a source…

Internationalisation is a buzzword in European higher education, and many universities work hard to devise and implement strategies that will help facilitate increased transnational student mobility. In this context, English is commonly seen as the "natural" choice for university internationalisation, and English is accordingly promoted…

The term "Citetaal" was originally used to refer to the language spoken by Italian immigrants in the Eastern part of Flanders (Limburg) and diffused in the former ghettoised mining areas (the cite). It is a melting pot language, based on Dutch but with a high amount of code mixture from immigrant languages, mostly Italian and Turkish.…

In Belgium and Brussels, macrocontextual features such as language policy and language legislation have a profound impact on people's language use and on the way languages are learned. In order to explain this impact, the political and economic developments that have determined the current context of learners in Brussels are discussed. Secondly, a…