Thirty-five children (17 boys and 18 girls, 4 to 8 years old) in 2-parent Chinese immigrant families had attended English-speaking facilities for 35.0 months (boys) and 32.9 months (girls), respectively. They were tested at home with the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R) and the Mandarin version of PPVT-R. No gender differences were…

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…

Language and culture teaching has always been a complex and challenging task. For many educators, their teaching experiences are rooted in their earlier preparation, their classroom situations and their curriculum. In this study, indigenous educators recount their lived experiences with teaching their language and culture at a distance. These…

How heritage learners successfully maintain their heritage language (HL) and literacy is a significant topic of discussion in the field of bilingual education. This study examines what factors are most closely associated with literacy competence by inspecting Korean heritage learners' language and literacy practice patterns and their literacy…

A challenge noted in a number of endangered language contexts is the need to mix second-language (L2) learners of the target language with first-language (L1) speakers of that language in a less planned way than is found in the two-way immersion approach. Such mixing of L1 speakers of the target language with L2 learners arises from the difficulty…

Despite the proliferation of research in heritage language (HL) education, pedagogically based research that examines teacher education practice for promoting critical reflection of HL teachers is sparse. This article describes how preservice teachers working in community-based HL schools changed their views of HL identity during their…

This regional dossier aims to provide a concise, description and basic statistics about minority language education in a specific region of Europe. Aspects that are addressed include features of the education system, recent educational policies, main actors, legal arrangements, and support structures, as well as quantitative aspects, such as the…

In a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-lingual country like India, making priorities about the use of language in education, administration, media and other domains of activities is not free from adverse effects. The choice of one language over others becomes threat to the existence of many. The constitution of India has made…

An extensive body of research documents the successes of immigrant groups in establishing community language schools. Studied within this tradition, Latino immigrant communities appear to come up short, because of the scarcity of such schools for Spanish-speaking children. However, as we show in this paper, Latino immigrant communities do have…

In this article I explore ethical issues in relation to the topic of Aboriginal students who speak a dialect of English. Taking the form of a retrospective inquiry, I draw on data from an earlier study that examined Aboriginal English in the broader context of Aboriginal language loss and revival. Three interrelated ethical issues are discussed:…

Recognising that literacy is fundamental to the educational success of Indigenous students, this essay reviews current literacy intervention programs from a social justice perspective. It reveals the tension between policies and initiatives that have addressed the two key rights of Indigenous people--the right to access mainstream knowledge and…

The concept of "Ethnolinguistic Vitality" (EV) has received variable acceptance and support since its introduction by Giles, Bourhis, and Taylor. It has especially proven to be a valuable heuristic in studies of language maintenance and shift. However, the reliability and validity of the instruments used to investigate EV, especially…

Heritage grammars, linguistic varieties emerging in the context of intergenerational language loss, are known to diverge from the corresponding full-fledged baseline varieties in principled and systematic ways, as typically illustrated by errors made by heritage speakers in production. This dissertation examines "covert" restructuring of aspect in…

With the colonization of Ireland in the 17th century by Cromwellian and Williamite forces, the spread of English as a language of power marked a linguistic shift as Anglicization and economic necessity transformed Irish to a vernacular of the poor. Where Irish was spoken by almost all throughout the country in the 17th century, a steady drop began…

The paper argues that the notion of ethnolinguistic vitality has been used ambiguously in the vitality theory, denoting three distinct theoretical concepts: sustainability (Su), strength (S) and vitality (V). It is hypothesised that sustainability is a group's ability to continue existing as a group while vitality is its ability to act as a…