This paper reports on the multilingual background, language education policies and practices in Lebanon. Specifically, it shows how the multilingual make-up in the country is translated into language policies in schools. A survey of 30 private school principals, middle managers and teachers was administered online to obtain their views on school…

Literacy is perhaps the most fundamental skill required for effective participation in education (formal and non-formal) for national development. At the same time, the choice of language for literacy is a complex issue in multilingual societies like Nigeria. This paper examines the issues involved, namely language policy, language and teacher…

Early education programs in the United States are experiencing an increase in the number of English learners and, consequently, an increase in dual-language programs that best serve the needs of these children. Dual-language programs enable children to communicate orally and in written forms in both their native languages and in English. This…

This case study examines how a lecturer and a group of students adjust to a request for English-only medium of instruction in tertiary education. The study draws on sociocultural theories considering context and language use as tools for meaning making. Goffman's theories of stage setting and footing are used to analyse how the lecturer positions…

Over the last decade, Alternate Reality Games (ARGs), a form of narrative often involving multiple media and gaming elements to tell a story that might be affected by participants' actions, have been used in the marketing and promotion of a number of entertainment related products such as films, computer games and music. This paper discusses the…

This article provides an overview of the role that interdisciplinarity plays in the Spanish education system. With this aim, we first describe the main conception of the term "interdisciplinarity" in texts written in Spanish, including other terms that have similar meaning. Then we review the role of interdisciplinarity in the Spanish…

This article presents the case for using a critical literacy approach to enhance the freshman composition experience for second language writers. As our classrooms become more multilingual and multicultural with each passing semester, we need to move away from thinking of our ESL students as "outliers" and consider them as key…

The need for proficient speakers of multiple languages has emerged as a result of political and economic forces in the last decade driving the challenge to find effective and efficient way to teach and learn languages. The past decade has brought numerous innovations and advances in the area of technology, which have changed the role from one of…

Although Belgium is officially trilingual (Dutch, French, and German), its legislation does not allow for bilingual education (BE). Recently, concerns about the position of Dutch in the face of French and immigrant languages have politicized the issue in the bilingual capital of Brussels and the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders. Considering…

The voices of the main stakeholders in literacy and schooling--pupils and parents--have seldom been given adequate space in studies of school and classroom discourse in sub-Saharan Africa. The present paper attempts to redress this imbalance by presenting the voices of pupils from a multilingual urban primary school in Ghana and of parents from a…

This article reports on the small-scale evaluation of a school-based action research project, focusing on the creation of teaching materials aimed at developing tools for multilingualism for pupils aged 7-14. This three-year project was launched in September 2004 in 12 state primary schools and two secondary schools in two local authorities in the…

Responding to the need for foreign language fluency in ever-globalizing business and cultural spheres, the federal government and foreign language institutions in an eleven-member task force collaboratively published a set of nationally recognized, foundational standards for foreign language teaching. Rather than rely on teacher-centered…

Children of foreign origin are increasingly failing in mathematics in Swedish compulsory schools. This article analyses the didactics at a school proven very successful in teaching mathematics to all children including the 70% of children of foreign origin. The situation at the studied school is compared to research of the Swedish school system…

This book presents results from a four-year project addressing the central question: What factors, challenges, and contexts contribute to and constrain literacy achievement among at-risk adolescent learners with culturally diverse backgrounds? Researchers consider the importance of several, interrelated factors that support the development of…

About 5.3 million English Language Learners (ELLs)--students whose primary language is not English and whose English language skills are not sufficient to keep up with classes conducted only in English--are enrolled in PK-12 public schools across the United States. The number of these students increased dramatically in ten years, from 3.5 million…