The South African constitution and related legislative tools provide a supportive framework for multilingual education. Successful implementation, however, requires appropriate learning materials and questions remain as to the vision and commitment of publishers to producing them. Based on an analysis of currently available books for children and…

Taiwan began its political reform of languages in the 1990s. At this time, "Mandarin Plus" (Official Language Plus) became the core of Taiwanese language policy to deal with the aftermath of forced national linguistic assimilation under Chiang's administration (1945-1988). Mandarin Plus, defined as teaching vernacular languages other…

Three-quarters of Singapore's population consists of ethnic Chinese, and yet, learning Chinese (Mandarin) has been a headache for many Singapore students. Recently, many scholars have argued that the rhetoric of language planning for Mandarin Chinese should be shifted from emphasizing its cultural value to stressing its economic value since…

The development of critical sensibilities in English Language Teaching (ELT) in recent years has seen challenges to assumptions and methodologies in the field, placing an explicit focus on the manifestation of structures and relations of power. The critical stance affords a growing acceptance of English Language Teaching as a complex situated…

This article offers a review of policy and research as they relate to Allophones and their access to French Second Official Language (FSOL) programs in English-dominant Canada. Possible areas of future research are woven throughout the review as questions emerge in the summary of relevant literature. (Contains 3 notes.)

This qualitative policy study focuses on the implementation and perceived effect of a recent language policy making English a compulsory subject in primary Cycle One (grades 1-2) in Francophone public schools in the province of Quebec. Based on the analysis of narratives from interviews with four teachers, three resource teachers, and two…

In school languages education in Australia at present there is an increasing diversity of languages and learners learning particular languages that results from a greater global movement of students. This diversity builds on a long-established profile of diversity that reflects the migration history of Australia. It stands in sharp contrast to the…

This article reviews part of the progress of the first year of the Isan Culture Maintenance and Revitalisation Programme (ICMRP), a four-year 540,000 euro series of pilot studies co-funded by the European Union and based in Thailand. The ICMRP is based in four semi-autonomous municipalities in Khon Kaen Province, viz. Ban Phai, Chum Phae, Khon…

This article reports a case study of two Chinese-English bilingual families in Singapore and illustrates the importance of incorporating two hitherto disconnected fields of research--family language policy and family literacy practices--to an understanding of early language and literacy acquisition in the familial milieu. Specifically, this work…

Having been the scene of language planning for more than a century in relation to the two competing written standards of Norwegian, Norwegian language planners are now facing a new challenge: how to deal with what has been termed "domain loss" where Norwegian is perceived as losing out to English in important sectors of society,…

This study explores new data from 2008 on language proficiency and labour market outcomes in the context of South Africa's language-in-education policy. We show that the economic returns to English language proficiency are large and higher than those to home language proficiency for the majority of employed South Africans. This helps explain why…

The Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) is one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse nations in Southeast Asia. The post-1975 government's policies regarding ethnic minority peoples are often considered to represent an ideological shift from earlier monocultural orientations to a discourse of interethnic equality and solidarity.…

Discourses of development, education, gender, feminism and critical linguistics arrive in Africa from usually well-meaning but often opportunistic agents from other contemporary socio-political and economic contexts. Each of these forms a new layer that veils the earlier discourses and practices. Simultaneously, people in Africa are…

In this paper I outline the challenges for feminist language planning in the context of a global lingua franca--English. Drawing upon the views of speakers of "World Englishes" I discuss their reactions as well as reported practices in relation to gender-inclusive language use. This reveals the complexities of managing the tension between the…

This article reports on a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis using a nominal group process undertaken to identify and tackle significant factors, both internal and external, affecting those current Deaf bilingual practices in Spain which promote or prevent the processes through which more inclusive (barrier-free)…