Reports the case studies of three trilingual elementary school children in separate Vancouver (British Columbia) early French immersion classes, focusing on themes emerging from analysis related to the children's literacy practices and contexts for language learning, and the teachers' perceptions of these students and representations of…

Reports on a research project conducted in Mauritius that aimed to investigate patterns of language use, language choice, and language attitudes of Mauritian adolescents in full-time education. Data was collected by means of a questionnaire and interviews from a sample of the secondary school population. (Author/VWL)

Surveyed groups of Chinese, Malay and Tamil families, their use of community languages or mother tongue, and their speaking, reading, and writing proficiency. Found that when parents' community language proficiency in speaking is lower they tend to choose English as preferred language. Children's language confidence affected their language choice.…

Examines 11 research projects on multilingualism and education in Lebanon, many of which focus on multilingualism and language learning. The research emphasizes three areas: different multicultural aspects of life and communication; specific patterns of multilingual communication (e.g., emphasizing home communication and children's language…

Reports that for centuries French language ideology has elaborated various types of discourses in order to establish linguistic dominance and hierarchy. Asserts that if these discourses could be recognized as a recursive prototype, counter-strategies could be developed to combat linguistic dominance, wherever it may be found. (Contains 30…

States that, for more than four centuries, Cyprus has employed both Turkish and Greek as its two main languages. Suggests that the island's lack of policies regarding bilingualism has weakened relations between these two cultural groups, and that the introduction of English makes their assimilation even more difficult. (Contains 19 references.)…

Examines the implications for education of a national language policy in South Africa, a region whose constitution recognizes 11 official languages. Argues that African languages must be used in the business of government if they are to remain viable as languages of instruction in schools. (Contains 13 references.) (NB)

Reports that English, Italian, and Arabic were the official languages of Somalia 1960, even though 95% of the population spoke Somali. However, under a totalitarian regime that came to power in the early 1970's, Somalia was able to promote Somali as the official language. Offers guidance for implementation of literacy campaigns. (Contains 18…

The goal of this paper is to discuss the role of emotion-related factors in language choice in bi- and multilingual families. Most of the time, factors other than emotions govern language choice and use in such families, among them language dominance, social context and linguistic competence of the interlocutors. However, quantitative and…

This paper reports on an empirical study of street language, a multilingual youth register in the Netherlands. Nearly 300 secondary school students completed a questionnaire on their acquaintance with and use of street language. A subsample of students was also interviewed. Use of street language will be related to background information about the…

Post-apartheid South Africa has officially sanctioned multilingualism in a constitution that recognises 11 official languages. However, the status of all of the languages is not perceived as being equal. The majority of South Africans want their children to be educated in English, although this is not their mother tongue, and schools are under…

This paper examines the teaching and use of, as well as the attitude towards, English among China's ethnic minorities. Starting with a critique of China English, a term used with increasing frequency in the literature on World Englishes and English nativised in the Chinese context, the paper attempts to show that English has yet to find its way…

The "newSLATE" environment provides a Web-based infrastructure for language learning. Its design and implementation were driven by the difficulties of non-Roman-script text handling. The software features a cross-platform approach to non-Roman text input and handling and a novel method for automatically generating online quizzes from study…

In this contribution, the results of an empirical study on young immigrants' learning paths and school to job transition are presented. The study focused on the strategies of successful students from the Portuguese immigrant minority in Hamburg. One aim was to find out whether the young people could profit by their migration experiences and…

In Claire Kramsch's (2004) response to work by Mary Louise Pratt (2002) on multilingualism, identity and language in the U.S., she proposed that the four points made by Pratt be extended to the following: (1) Monolingualism is a handicap, but so is the assumption that one language = one culture = adherence to one cultural community; (2) Heritage…