The socio-cultural settings of English-language and English-medium classrooms are intrinsically bi/multilingual and bi/multicultural as both learners and teachers bring their multiple identities and home-community languages and sociolinguistic practices into the classroom. However, more often than not in such contexts, monolingual ideologies are…

The present article reports on research conducted during late 2004 on the language abilities of Australia's parliamentarians and a parliamentary debate in 2005 on languages in Australia. A small questionnaire was administered to all members of the nine legislative structures of Australia comprising six states, two territories and the one Federal…

This paper focuses on the use of Basque as the language of instruction. In the first part of the article the situation of Basque in the Basque Country is briefly described and the different possibilities regarding the language(s) of instruction are explained: model A with Spanish as the language of instruction and Basque as a subject; model B with…

The dominance of English in particular domains of language use in South Africa, such as higher education and the economy, has led to the fear that other languages may be threatened by an increasing shift to English in all domains, especially among the young. However, this paper reveals the strong vitality of the mother tongues in the intimate…

This article examines, from a broad historical perspective, how Australia's negative "linguistic culture" has shaped languages education in our country. Language teachers' pre- and inservice training does not often address this topic. Yet to be able to anchor one's profession within a historical, sociocultural, and political perspective,…

A key issue, which has undermined the development of community/heritage language teaching in the UK over recent decades, has been the need to define an appropriate pedagogical approach which takes account of the bilingual and bicultural background of the majority of learners studying these languages. Within the National Curriculum, community…

Second generation immigrants tend to shift their loyalty from their own languages ("immigrant language") to the language of the host country ("societal language"), given the socioeconomically weak vitality position of the immigrant languages. This language shift makes intergenerational communication, especially with folk left…

This article challenges the categorisation of English into national forms, arguing that this obscures differences in usage within a nation and ignores genres and registers that exist around the world. Further, I suggest that in addition to examining the spread of English around the world, scholars should study the ubiquity of various discourses…

In this paper we will present the main principles behind language planning in the Ikastolas (Basque medium Schools), where a plurilingual school model has been developed as a way of promoting minority languages in a globalised world. We will start by contextualising the Ikastolas' language policy, briefly tracing their history from their…

This is a small scale, inductive, ethnographic study whose objective is to explore the language learning strategies used by the students of different languages at a language program at the university level. Students of English, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Italian, and German participate in the study. Three instruments are used…

Student performance in basic math and reading skills in the United States trails behind other developed countries, providing the rationale for more research to determine how performance might be improved. Following evidence to conclude that multilingualism enhances cognitive, neuro-linguistic and meta-linguistic development, it is proposed that…

This paper begins by looking at responses to Bernstein in Germany in the 1970s that criticized his notions of class difference in sociolinguistic codes. As part of a re-examination of Bernstein's ideas, the paper goes on to look at the current communicative situation in German education where urban schools have many second-generation immigrant…

Despite the Hong Kong SAR (Special Administrative Region) government's determination to implement the "mother tongue education" policy amid strong social resistance one year after the handover, English remains a prestigious language in society. The need for Putonghua (Mandarin/Standard Chinese) is also increasing following ever-expanding…

The data discussed in this paper is drawn from research conducted in a multilingual urban primary school in Johannesburg, South Africa, where the official language of instruction is English and the majority of learners are African language speakers, frequently with very limited English proficiency. The paper presents a case study of one child who…

A discussion of education in New Hebrides, where many different languages are spoken. (HB)