Language Education Policy

This new edition of takes a fresh look at enduring questions at the heart of fundamental debates about the role of schools in society, the links between education and employment, and conflicts between linguistic minorities and "mainstream" populations.

This must-have handbook offers a comprehensive survey of the field. It reviews the language education policies of Asia, encompassing 30 countries sub-divided by regions, namely East, Southeast, South and Central Asia, and considers the extent to which these are being implemented and with what effect. The most recent iteration of language education policies of each of the countries is described and the impact and potential consequence of any change is critically considered. Each country chapter provides a historical overview of the languages in use and language education policies, examines the ideologies underpinning the language choices, and includes an account of the debates and controversies surrounding language and language education policies, before concluding with some predictions for the future.

In the sociopolitics of language, sometimes yesterday’s solution is tomorrow’s problem. This volume examines the evolving nature of language acquisition planning through a collection of papers that consider how decisions about language learning and teaching are mediated by a confluence of psychological, ideological, and historical forces. The first two parts of the volume feature empirical studies of formal and informal education across the lifespan and around the globe. Case studies map the agents, resources, and attitudes needed for creating moments and spaces for language learning that may, at times, collide with wider beliefs and policies that privilege some languages over others. The third part of the volume is devoted to conceptual contributions that take up theoretical issues related to epistemological and conceptual challenges for language acquisition planning. These contributions reflect on the full spectrum of social and cognitive factors that intersect with the planning of language teaching and learning including ethnic and racial power relations, historically situated political systems, language ideologies, community language socialization, relationships among stakeholders in communities and schools, interpersonal interaction, and intrapersonal development. In all, the volume demonstrates the multifaceted and socially situated nature of language acquisition planning.

Over the last 50 years, language policy has developed into a major discipline, drawing on research and practice in many nations and at many levels. This is the first Handbook to deal with language policy as a whole and is a complete 'state-of-the-field' survey, covering language practices, beliefs about language varieties, and methods and agencies for language management. It provides a historical background which traces the development of classical language planning, describes activities associated with indigenous and endangered languages, and contains chapters on imperialism, colonialism, effects of migration and globalization, and educational policy. It also evaluates language management agencies, analyzes language activism and looks at language cultivation (including reform of writing systems, orthography and modernized terminology). The definitive guide to the subject, it will be welcomed by students, researchers and language professionals in linguistics, education and politics.

Presenting research on language policy and planning, with a special focus on educational contexts in which English plays a role, this book brings readers up-to-date on the latest developments in research, theory, and practice in a rapidly changing field. The diversity of authors, research settings, and related topics offers a sample of empirical studies across multiple language teaching and university contexts. The fifth volume in the Global Research on Teaching and Learning English series, it features access to both new and previously unpublished research in chapters written by TIRF Doctoral Dissertation Grant awardees and invited chapters by respected scholars in the field.

This volume analyses the policymaking, expectations, implementation, progress, and outcomes of early language learning in various education policy contexts worldwide. The contributors to the volume are international researchers specialising in language policy and early language learning and their contributions aim to advance scholarship on early language learning policies and inform policymaking at the global level. The languages considered include learning English as a second language in primary schools in Japan, Mexico, Serbia, Argentina, and Tanzania; Spanish language education in the US and Australia; Arabic as a second language in Israel and Bangladesh; Chinese in South America and Oceania; and finally, early German teaching and learning in France and the UK.

This volume offers comprehensive 'state-of-the-art' overviews of educational policies concerning the teaching of English in a large number of Asian countries. Each contribution is written by a leading expert and gives a clear assessment of current policies and future trends. Starting with a description of the English education policies in the respective countries, the contributors then delve into the 'nuts and bolts' of the English education policies and how they play out in practice in the education system, in schools, in the curriculum, and in teaching. Topics covered include the balance between the acquisition of English and the national language, political, cultural, economic and technical factors that strengthen or weaken the learning of English.

Addressing a wide range of issues in applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, and multilingualism, this volume focuses on language users, the ‘people.’ Making creative connections between existing scholarship in language policy and contemporary theory and research in other social sciences, authors from around the world offer new critical perspectives for analyzing language phenomena and language theories, suggesting new meeting points among language users and language policy makers, norms, and traditions in diverse cultural, geographical, and historical contexts. Identifying and expanding on previously neglected aspects of language studies, the book is inspired by the work of Elana Shohamy, whose critical view and innovative work on a broad spectrum of key topics in applied linguistics has influenced many scholars in the field to think “out of the box” and to reconsider some basic commonly held understandings, specifically with regard to the impact of language and languaging on individual language users rather than on the masses.