Twelve languages--including the two prestigious colonial languages, English and French, a French-based creole and "ancestral" languages, such as Hindi and Mandarin--are spoken on the multiethnic island Mauritius. Given the multilingual and multiethnic nature of the nation, linguistic practices are an important way for Mauritians to…

This paper discusses strategies of intercomprehension in the context of the promotion of plurilingualism and intercultural competence in Europe. Plurilingualism and intercomprehension are concepts of particular importance in the multilingual and multicultural European context. These are explicit aims and requirements of the European Union when…

This monograph describes the language planning situation in Nigeria, one of the most multilingual countries in Africa. It is divided into four sections. The first section presents the language profile of Nigeria and provides a background of the general language situation in the country. The second section discusses language spread and use. It…

This paper focuses on an information gap task that was part of a larger critical action research project that sought to expand talk opportunities for children in multilingual classrooms. Little of the previous research on tasks and language learning has focused on children learning English as an additional language in the context of diverse,…

This article reports on a diary study conducted to explore third language acquisition in the immersion setting in Mexico as experienced by a bilingual Russian/English learner of Spanish who had recently immigrated to the USA from Russia. Language learning is approached as a socialization process that involves negotiation of meaning (Vygotsky,…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of using Spanish captions, English captions, or no captions with a Spanish language soundtrack on intermediate university-level Spanish as a Foreign Language students' listening/reading comprehension. A total of 213 intermediate (fourth semester) students participated as intact groups in the…

Described in this paper are the first three activities of a research program designed to assess the differential validity and utility of successive and simultaneous approaches to the development of equivalent achievement tests in the French and English languages. Two teams of multilingual/multicultural French-English teachers used the simultaneous…

Through narratives taken from life history interviews with an indigenous Mexican male immigrant in California, this paper examines the connection between masculinities and the learning of dominant languages associated with access to economic opportunities. In portraying the teller's engagements with work and education in both countries, these life…

The Linguistic European Policy stresses the importance of linguistic diversity and encourages students to learn several languages, believing that the more languages we know, the better we can understand each other and preserve our languages. To preserve diversity and to value all the languages (either included in the curriculum or not) is a first…

In this paper a comparative analysis of the status of four types of languages present in the Serbian compulsory education system is presented: (1) Serbian as L1; (2) Serbian as L2 (for ethnic minorities); (3) minority languages; as well as (4) traditionally designated "foreign languages", such as English, French, Russian and German,…

A study of language attitudes in Sub-Saharan Africa, an area of 45 countries and over 1,700 languages, attempts to: (1) pinpoint attitudinal patterns towards European and indigenous languages; (2) give these attitudes historical perspective; (3) identify attitudes toward language use in education; (4) encourage language research on attitudes in…

This booklet reflects the past 10 year's thoughts and experiences and presents the current debate concerning multicultural early childhood education, as experienced by the Lady Gowrie Child Centre, in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The booklet describes how the center experienced the satisfying process of change and growth with such a program…

A study investigated the role of bilingualism (Basque/Spanish) and motivation in third (English) language acquisition in Spain's Basque country. Subjects were 321 secondary school students in two programs, one with instruction primarily in Spanish and one with instruction primarily in Basque. The following independent variables were analyzed in…

This book introduces the general reader to the mosaic of American Indian languages and cultures as they exist in time and space, and supplies limited technical linguistic orientation to encourage further exploration of language interrelationships, cultures, and other ways of knowing. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the status, diversity, and…

A project introducing English as a third language in 30 elementary schools in the Basque Country (Spain) is described. The program, emerging from a national curriculum reform effort, begins English instruction when students are eight years old, three years earlier than previously. Students are already bilingual in Spanish and Basque, both official…