Examines the language practices in three immigrant families of South Asian ancestry who reside in Canada and have chosen French immersion education for their children. Based on interview data, presents a profile of the inter- and intra-generational language interactions that distinguish each family. Describes their reasons for maintaining their…

Describes the language situation in Nepal in social and historical perspective, as well as by looking at language planning and policy implemented by the national government over the last 50 years. Discusses local languages, multilingualism, and lingua franc. (Author/VWL)

Sets the language policy scene in Sweden in the broader perspective of the ongoing restructuring of global and local linguistic hierarchies. Analyzes myths about global English, the equality of the 11 official languages in the European Union, and the extent to which linguistic human rights are guaranteed. Trends in each of these language policy…

Drawing on theoretical perspectives related to play and identity, play as a literary and social text, and multimodality, I present an analysis of a play narrative centred on the theme of playing house. The narrative exemplifies the interconnections between literacy and identity in the social and cultural world of a young girl growing up in a…

The purpose of this article is to describe a school that has successfully prepared its students for a multilingual society using a 2-way bilingual immersion program. Students' high SAT scores, as well as their participation at school and in the community, provide evidence that acquiring 2 languages does not sacrifice academic achievement.…

This paper discusses the political, or ideological, use of official languages (English and French) data in Canada. A more pragmatic use of official languages data would enable policy actors to better address the unequal relations between English and French. Specific suggestions are made in order to move the debate in that direction. (Contains 7…

The cultural values of multilingual students are sometimes at variance with Western academic practice, in matters such as plagiarism. In accepting this, however, it is important to avoid stereotyping. Instead we should respect and make use of the students' own traditions of study. It is also time to acknowledge that ideas and language are…

As the authors look ahead toward the World Forum on May 2005, they consider prospects of coming together with international, multilingual leaders in early care and education. They asked some questions to stimulate thinking and to share cross-cultural perspectives on the topic of "Culture and Leadership". In this article, the authors…

This paper reports on the results of survey data examining English-speaking preservice teachers' (PSTs) attitudes toward and beliefs about foreign language teaching and learning. Part of a larger international study aimed at answering the research question: "What are the national, social, economic, and institutional "social-suggestive…

This article examines three conceptual reforms in US teacher education (competency-based teacher education (CBTE), reflective teacher education (RTE) and constructivist teacher education (CTE)) for their effects on the education of multicultural, multilingual youth, as well as considering alternative certification (AC), known here as an…

This article proposes a pedagogy of multiliteracies for Mexican indigenous groups. Using the Multiliteracies Framework developed by the New London Group (Cazden, Cope, Cook, Fairclough, Gee, et al., 1996), specifically the notions of "multimodality" and "design," it is argued that many "illiterate" indigenous people…

The focus of this paper is on immigrant minority languages in urban Western Europe. Both multidisciplinary and cross-national perspectives will be offered on two major domains in which language transmission occurs, i.e., the domestic domain and the public domain. Prototypical of these two domains are the home and the school, respectively. At home,…

This paper presents some considerations on teaching L2 rhetorical conventions in university-level multilingual classrooms. It is claimed that if L2 students need to acquire versatile writing skills in L2 to be given a voice in the discourse milieu of the receiving society, they should also have the right to preserve their L1 cultural perspective.…

This paper describes multiple Estonian-Russian language contacts in Estonia. For synchronic microsociolinguistic research it is usual to concentrate on the impact of a sociolinguistically dominant language A on an immigrant/minority language B. In the Soviet setting, the dominant language was usually Russian (despite Russians being a minority).…

This is a unique and groundbreaking collection of questions and answers coming from higher education institutions on diverse fields and across a wide spectrum of countries and cultures. It creates routes for further innovation, collaboration amidst the Sciences (both Natural and Social) and the Humanities and the private and the public sectors of…