Support dual-language learners as they develop the skills necessary for school readiness and success For dual-language learners--children who are learning both English and a home language--the first eight years are crucial for building strong foundations for academic success. During this time, children acquire the early literacy skills needed to…

In Australia, languages education in early childhood and primary education includes three main approaches: transitional, enrichment and full bilingual programmes. This article proposes that transitional and enrichment programmes in Australia are constituted and shaped by competing and contested institutional, material, discursive and economic…

In 1966, the Singapore Government implemented the English-knowing bilingual policy which made it mandatory for all Chinese students to study English as a "First Language" and the Chinese language (CL) as a "Mother Tongue Language" in Singapore schools. Using key literature relevant to Singapore's bilingual educational policy…

Although multilingualism is the norm in Africa the degree of linguistic complexity varies from one specific national context to another. While some countries are highly multilingual, others have fairly few languages. Similarly, whereas in some countries a good number of languages enjoy majority status; in others, we have a myriad of primarily…

In this article, education is regarded as a medium (Salomon, 2000). i.e. a channel for the transmission of knowledge with its specifically and historically defined form and content. From a media ecology perspective, media are not neutral, transparent or value-free channels for transporting information. Instead, the inherent physical structures and…

There are great expectations that new digital technology will become a powerful tool for developing education activities. Like many countries in Europe and worldwide, Sweden has invested a large amount of resources in new technology and new media (hereafter called digital media), and they have become a natural and important part of school…

This study examined how young Korean American children and the adults around these children perform naming practices and what these practices mean to the children. As part of a large ethnographic study on Korean American children's peer culture in a heritage language school in the United States, data were collected by observing 11 prekindergarten…

In this paper, I examine the teaching of language and culture and in particular the use of songs as curriculum in two London Turkish complementary schools. Drawing on a series of interconnected classroom vignettes, I look at how children weave together their semiotic resources to negotiate and transform two songs and the talk and action around…

The purpose of this paper is to show how a large group of students can work collaboratively in a synchronous way within the classroom using the cheapest possible technological support. Making use of the features of Single Display Groupware and of Multiple Mice we propose a computer-supported collaborative learning approach for big groups within…

This study explores the beliefs and attitudes that Korean immigrant parents and their children in the USA hold about their heritage language. Data were collected through interviews. This study addresses how parents' perspectives and their actual heritage language practices with their children influence their children's cultural identity and…

Drawn from a two-year critical ethnography, the author explores how Mexican-origin students in a U.S. southwest charter high school resisted Spanish heritage language instruction. Resistance was rooted in students' perception that their teacher unfairly characterized their linguistic and social identities. Students also constructed their…

The development of script schema, as a source of narrative knowledge, is an essential stage in this knowledge construction. This study focused on the role of bilingual versus monolingual preschool education in the development of script schema knowledge in Russian (L1) and Hebrew (L2) among Russian/Hebrew-speaking children in Israel. The preschool…

Background: Research on the relation between teaching and learning approaches has been mainly conducted in higher education and it is not yet clear to what extent the results can be generalised when it comes to secondary education. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to research how students in secondary education perceive their teachers'…

Disparities emanating from South Africa's apartheid history still pose a number of challenges to the country, especially in education. Since the transition to democracy in 1994, the prescribed government school curriculum has undergone several revisions in an endeavour to set standards and provide instruction of a high quality. On the language…

Subtractive bilingualism is widespread throughout Siberia, with indigenous youth often more proficient in Russian than in their non-Russian local languages. Siberia's national schools, which are secondary schools offering instruction in local languages of Russia, provide critical institutional support for minority languages. The goal of this…