Language Education Policies In Multilingual Settings

The volume provides grounded and contemporary insight into multilingual education from diverse perspectives – stemming from the authors' epistemic, cultural and geographic positioning around the world in different educational milieu – and will give both academic and practitioner audiences an up-to-date picture of multilingual education in the early 2020s. Multilingual education policies are continually implemented, re-evaluated and debated around the world, from primary to tertiary education. Fundamentally, however, educational policies manifest in classroom practice; the language envisaged in policy becomes the languaging of practice as teachers, learners and stakeholders negotiate educational curricula together. Internal and external forces – from resourcing to the Internet, to broader events such as pandemics and changes in government – shape the landscapes in which policies are enacted. The volume is extending the themes of the Multilingual Education Yearbook series in line withcurrent developments in theory, research and practice. As such, this book provides a wealth of information to practitioners (teachers and teacher educators), researchers in applied linguistics and language education, postgraduate students in the field of applied linguistics, and policymakers.

The difference between languages that children learn in the home (their mother tongues) and the languages valued by society and established as the medium of instruction in schools is an almost universal problem in educational systems. Proposals for mother tongue education, for bilingual programmes of various kinds, or for more effective teaching of literary or standard languages all depend on an understanding of the underlying problem of language education in multilingual settings. The writers of Language and Education in Multilingual Settings do not have a single view of the issues, for they are international in background and experience, and interdisciplinary in training and approach; moreover, as will be clear, they differ in political and philosophical beliefs, in scholarly rhetoric, in research paradigms and in personal circumstances. In this book, researchers from India, Yugoslavia, the USSR, the USA, New Zealand, Zambia, Denmark, Australia, and Israel discuss practice and theory in various parts of the world.

The 19th-century European notion of the one people-one language nation as the ideal state has been a very pervasive influence in spite of the fact that most countries in the world today are multilingual, that is they contain ethnic groups in contact and not infrequently in competition. Such thinking has held implications for the setting of language policies, from hanging a wooden clog around the neck of a child heard speaking Occitan in Southern France to the considerable budgeting in Ireland for the promotion of Irish. In this book, Paulston presents an analytical framework for explaining and predicting the language behaviour of social groups as such behaviour relates to linguistic policies for minority groups. She argues that a number of factors must be considered in the understanding and establishment of language policies for minority groups: (1) if language planning is to be successful, it must consider the social context of language problems, (2) the linguistic consequences for social groups in contact will vary depending on the focus of social mobilization, i.e. ethnicity or nationalism, and (3) a major problem in the accurate prediction of such linguistic consequences lies in identifying the salient factors which contribute to language maintenance or shift, i.e. answering the question “under what conditions?”. Part I outlines and discusses the analytical framework, beginning with a general consideration of language problems and language policies and of the social factors which contribute to language maintenance and shift. The author continues to discuss four distinct types of social mobilization, which under certain specified social conditions result in different linguistic consequences: ethnicity, ethnic movements, ethnic nationalism, and geographic nationalism. The argument is that such an understanding is vital to helpful educational policies and successful language planning in general. Part II contrasts and compares a number of case studies for clarification of their diverse courses of mother tongue maintenance. It particularly seeks to illustrate the type of social mobilization discussed in Part I and to understand the social conditions which influence and alter the effects of the type of social mobilization.

Exploring multilingualism as a complex, context-related, societal and individual phenomenon, this book centres around perspectives on how multiple languages are made (in)visible within educational settings in the Global North. The authors of each chapter compare and contrast findings across geographical contexts with the goal of understanding the facets of multilingualism that, on the one hand, conform across contexts, and on the other, diverge context-specifically. The chapters range from contributions with a focus on national/state planning for the development of sustainable multilingual and intercultural educational policies, to chapters that deal with multilingual practices and identities of students and student teachers as well as the consequences for language practices, strategies and policies in diversifying societies. This cross-contextual, comparative and interdisciplinary exploration of multilingualism will be of great interest to researchers, administrators, practitioners and students within the fields of multilingual education, sociolinguistics, youth culture and identity studies. The book is open access under a CC BY NC ND licence.

This book provides an overview of language education in Malaysia, covering topics such as the evolution of the education system from pre-independence days to the present time, to the typology of schools, and the public philosophy behind every policy made in the teaching of languages. The book consists of chapters devoted to the teaching of languages that form separate strands but are at the same time connected to each other within the education system. These chapters discuss: Implementing the national language policy in education institutions English in language education policies and planning in Malaysia Chinese and Tamil language education in Malaysia Teaching of indigenous Malaysian languages The role of translation in education in Malaysia It also discusses the development of language which enables the national language, Malay, to fulfil its role as the main medium of education up to the tertiary level. This book will be of interest to researchers studying language planning, teacher education and the sociology of education, particularly, within the Malaysian context.

Traditionally, teachers of majority languages receive less training to teach a language as a second language or to develop the plurilingual repertoire of their learners than, for example, foreign language teachers. Yet, in today's societies, learners bring many different languages to school. This means that the teaching of the majority language has to extend beyond teaching it as a first language and adopt elements of second language teaching. This publication aims to encourage teachers to become agents of reform for the promotion of plurilingualism in majority language teaching. The range of proposed actions includes small-scale activities, such as planning a lesson relating to a specific aspect of grammar which incorporates all languages spoken in the classroom. More comprehensive strategic approaches proposed in the materials involve head teachers or parents.

This book offers essential insights into the challenges and complexities surrounding the medium of instruction (MOI), its impact on all languages and stakeholders in multilingual contexts, educational processes, developments and outcomes. MOI has been a prominent topic in recent debates on the role of languages in education in multilingual contexts, partly because prioritizing one language over others as the medium of instruction has a profound impact on all languages and stakeholders in multilingual contexts. These include, to name but a few, (language) teachers, teacher educators, students, and policymakers, as well as industries and enterprises built around the needs and expectations of these stakeholders. This book presents high-quality empirical research on education in multilingual societies. It highlights research findings that, in addition to providing descriptions of language learning, development and use in language contact and multilingual contexts, will help shape future language education policy and practices in multilingual societies.