Few studies on English language learners (ELLs) focus on teachers' perceptions of bilingualism and bidialectalism and describe the impact of those perceptions on language arts pedagogy. While numerous studies have explored the teaching of diverse students and the negative effects of standardized tests on the quality instruction these students…

This article explores the design and implementation of critical action research undertaken to encourage equal classroom participation. Building on a body of literature on critical action research and oral participation, the author reports her research project undertaken in a multi-lingual and multi-ethnic class in Japan to examine practices of how…

This article is a collaboration between WAC/WID and second language acquisition (SLA) specialists. It examines alternate disciplinary notions of the place of writing among other skills and adapts concepts from SLA theory and pedagogy with the goal of providing new interdisciplinary options for WAC/WID research and classroom practice.

The theme behind this paper is to review the language policy and language planning in the Sudan, after the institutionalization of peace; by exploring the recent policy of political factions in the North and the South towards languages in post-war Sudan. This effort aims at encouraging non-Arabic speaking-ethnic-groups to accept the Arabic…

A significant and growing proportion of students in the United States speak primarily a non-English language at home. This dissertation contributes to the understanding of academic achievement patterns among language minority students in the United States. The first essay uses data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey Kindergarten Class…

Although South Africa is committed to a policy of linguistic diversity, the language-in-education policy is still plagued by the racialization of language issues under apartheid and, more recently, by new challenges posed by internal African migration. Drawing on the experience of a school in the Western Cape Province, this paper explores the role…

Using a critical perspective as its framework, this article reports on a case study that explored language practices and perceptions of six South African teachers who participated in a professional development workshop entitled "Language Across the Curriculum." The study reveals the conflicting attitudes of the teachers toward the role…

Purpose: Obtaining information on both languages of English language learners for assessment can be a challenge in a multilingual context. It is often difficult or impossible to observe a child's first language directly due to the absence of resources available in every language spoken. The objectives of this study were (1) to develop a parent…

Comprehensive high schools are extremely complex sites for the teaching and learning of academic literacies. However, current policy mandates emphasizing standards and accountability mask this complexity. Legislation such as No Child Left Behind in the United States and similar initiatives in other countries narrow the curriculum through their…

Increased immigration in Europe and worldwide has led to more pre- and primary school students being educated through the medium of a second language, and there is considerable research, much of it coming from Australia, to suggest that in order to cope with this situation, children will need to begin to acquire, from their earliest years in…

In this article, I draw on an ethnographic case study of one Toronto elementary school, as part of a Canada-wide action research project: Multiliteracy Project (www.multiliteracies.ca). I have explored how Perminder, a grade-4 teacher, developed a multiliteracies pedagogy, drawing on her own and her students' identities and linguistic and cultural…

This contribution reports on a qualitative study conducted with 14 young Chinese children enrolled in French immersion in Canada, to explore their multilingual practices, and their simultaneous acquisition of three writing systems. Drawings and in-depth interviews constituted creative and age appropriate narratives to understand children's…

In the last two decades, scholars in discourse studies and sociolinguistics have shown considerable interest in how identity is encoded in discourses across various facets of life such as academia, home, politics and workplace. By adopting an ethnographic-style approach, this study shows how students in a Ghanaian university construct their…

This article explores the impact of Hong Kong's transition from British colony to Chinese Special Administrative Region on patterns of language use in the domain of professional employment. In particular, it presents the findings of a large-scale multifaceted investigation into the roles of Putonghua, Cantonese, written Chinese and English in the…

This paper looks at the intersection between higher education, language and identity in Britain. It examines the reflections of minority ethnic graduates on their undergraduate studies in a new university in London. The graduates are from widening participation backgrounds and are multilingual. The paper explores how these graduates experienced…