In this article, the author presents the approaches and strategies for culturally and linguistically responsive early education in an international preschool in Moscow, Russia. This international preschool, enrolling children from Russia, the United States, Germany, Italy, Israel, Argentina, Brazil, Sweden, and Japan, provides a multilingual and…

This article reports on a cultural studies course about Switzerland conducted within the German Studies program at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in 2005. It discusses the pluricentric concept of "Landeskunde" of the German-speaking region which informed the design of the course seminars and presents the main themes which were…

Iranian Journal of Language Studies (IJLS) is devoted to all areas of language and linguistics. Its aim is to present work of current interest in all areas of language study. No particular linguistic theories or scientific trends are favored: scientific quality and scholarly standing are the only criteria applied in the selection of papers…

Over the last century, the small Malay Islamic Sultanate of Brunei Darussalam, on the northern coast of Borneo, has moved away from an oral tradition, to a print culture and towards mass literacy. Discovery of oil in the early part of the 20th century transformed the economic situation in the country, and led to major changes and developments in…

This study examines the multilingual and multiliteracy practices of a group of Tibetan female youths from South Asia (India, Bhutan, Nepal) newly arrived in Toronto, Canada (N = 24). The main data are derived from a questionnaire surveying their language practices across contexts indicating the roles of education, community, and society in…

Since the post-Soviet context is not particularly well known to the majority of readers, the author uses this introduction to provide a general background against which developments in particular post-Soviet countries can be better understood. The author begins by placing these developments in the sociohistoric context of language policies of the…

Government policy in England has for many years encouraged parental involvement in their children's education. In response, most primary schools have developed a range of strategies designed to assist parents in supporting their children's learning at home, particularly in learning to read. However, it is a common assumption that parents from some…

At Joyce Public School (JPS) in the Greater Toronto Area, we are engaged in ongoing collaborative action research to develop pedagogical approaches to emergent literacies that engage multilingual, multicultural, and multimodal perspectives in complex interplay. Our research is grounded in the challenges children experience in acquiring literacy…

Throughout the 20th century, international communication has shifted from a plural use of several languages to a clear pre-eminence of English, especially in the field of science. This paper focuses on international periodical publications where more than 75 percent of the articles in the social sciences and humanities and well over 90 percent in…

Mauritius is a multilingual postcolonial island of the Indian Ocean. Although the French-lexified creole, Mauritian Creole/Kreol, is the native language of 70% of the Mauritian population, it is excluded from the education system. Kreol lacks prestige because it is seen as broken French and associated with the local Creoles, a socioeconomically…

Bilingualism and multiculturalism have for four decades been official ideologies and policies in Canada but, as is often the case, the implementation and outcomes of such government policies nationally are less impressive than the rhetoric would suggest. This article reviews the political, theoretical and demographic contexts justifying support…

In this paper we present findings from an empirical study-in-progress that investigates how a teacher integrates technology, specifically an Interactive Whiteboard (IWB), to teach multiliterate practices when reading multi-modal texts. This research was a collaboration between a teacher and a team of university-based researchers as they used…

This paper focuses on the role of codeswitching (CS) by isiZulu (Zulu) native language (NL) junior secondary learners in English first language (EL1) multilingual classrooms in South Africa. In spite of the educational transformation in South Africa, and the recognition of CS (by education policy documents) as a means of fulfilling pedagogical…

This compilation represents the second installment of reports on second language and multicultural issues. Six of the 13 international reports received in response to the questionnaire were published in "Reading Research Quarterly," volume 42, number 3. These seven reports were filed by International Research Correspondents (IRC) and are…

This section presents brief synopses of empirical research and theoretical discussions in peer-reviewed journals. The aim is to disseminate findings and perspectives in fields related to TESOL and to provide access to the diverse conversations among scholars in the field.