Despite a well-documented and significant increase in the population of children in UK schools who speak language(s) beyond English at home, the national Newly Qualified Teacher survey regularly reports that new teachers do not feel confident or prepared to work effectively with 'EAL children'. Whilst understanding the experiences and exploring…

National language planning and family language planning may converge or diverge. As 2019 marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the new China, we examined language planning at both the national level and the family level in China. We first revisited language policy and planning in China over the last seventy years through a policy…

The decision on which language(s) of instruction to use and how to use them in education is a persistent challenge in the development of quality education in multilingual countries like Ghana. This qualitative study of four public basic schools in the Ashanti region of Ghana explores teachers' and pupils' experience of the early-exit transitional…

It is natural to assume the languages classroom to be a key site for the construction of learners' linguistic and multilingual identities. Yet, an underlying assumption exists that this will occur regardless of whether teachers explicitly raise learners' awareness about the nature of language and how language is implicated in their lived…

With the multilingual turn in applied linguistics, translanguaging has been envisioned as a pedagogical approach in multiple contexts (Creese & Blackledge, 2010; Galante, 2020; Yilmaz, 2019). Recent discussions have turned to teachers' perspectives to understand how teachers' monolingual ideologies and beliefs could limit the potential of such…

This article discusses the role of vocabulary learning in supporting multilingual students' participation in disciplinary practices and discourses in K-12 content-area classrooms. First, the authors discuss the strengths and limitations of incidental and intentional vocabulary learning. They then propose a new approach to vocabulary instruction in…

Despite the steadily increasing number of linguistically diverse international students (LDISs) in higher education in the U.S, many universities still mostly use curriculum and instruction that are based on monolingual norms (Ginther & Yan, 2018). Thus, the current system fails to accommodate the particular needs of LDISs, which, in addition…

The present study aims to investigate the effectiveness of a training programme targeted at United Nations (UN) staff interpreters who go on field missions. The UN deploys staff interpreters to ensure effective multilingual communication in field missions. Whilst being professional interpreters, however, these interpreters do not have any formal…

With the expansion of primary school education in Kazakhstan, many ethnic groups were reached. This situation has started to signal the necessity of classroom teachers having knowledge, awareness and experience in subjects such as sensitivity, education and needs of children. This research is a qualitative study, and it was conducted to understand…

Parents, family members, and other adults can play critical roles in helping their multilingual preschool-age children confront the stresses and trauma of the continuing COVID-19 pandemic. This brief highlights various language practices of multilingual children that deserve to be respected and nurtured through daily conversations and…

US public schools often do not provide multilingual (ML) students with the support necessary to be successful in science education or deny ML students the opportunity to participate altogether. Recent science and English Learner Development (ELD) standards adoptions in California require teachers to change their practices, creating the potential…

"Introducing Second Language Acquisition: Perspectives and Practices" provides a clear and comprehensive introduction to the main concepts, issues, and debates in second language acquisition studies. This introductory textbook is aimed specifically at students encountering the topic for the first time. Each chapter offers a modern layout…

To accelerate literacy learning for upper-elementary multilingual children designated as English learners (ML-ELs), teachers need instructional tools that create sustained opportunities for reading and discussing informational texts, examining the language encountered in those texts, and building new content knowledge. To address this need, we…

According to the Michigan Department of Education, between 2011 and 2017, the number of multilingual learners (MLs) enrolled in K-12 schools in the state increased by more than 50%. In 2017, the average teacher to ML ratio in the state was an alarmingly low 1:168. To increase the number of teachers prepared to effectively serve MLs, we developed…

This paper explores how "English learners (ELs)" or who we prefer to call "multilingual learners" are labeled and positioned in policy documents and leading education research documents respectively. Attending to the urgent call for serving the growing number of linguistically and culturally diverse learners, this study delves…