Language education needs for multilingualism in Fiji primary schools

This paper looks at current practice in teaching multilingual Indo-Fijian children in eight Fiji primary schools. Indo-Fijians speak Fiji Hindi (FH) as their mother tongue, learn Shudh Hindi (SH) or Urdu, and English for formal and literacy purposes and use English and Fijian for interethnic communication. The current education policy states that children be taught in their mother tongue for the first 3 years of primary school before English becomes the medium of instruction. This practice was not apparent in the schools. In all 24 observed classrooms, English was the dominant language of instruction. There is an important need in Fiji for teacher training to address the issues around multilingual education so that teachers can confidently contribute to an educational system which maximises the use of Fiji's linguistic resources for the educational advancement of all sectors of the country's population.     

Multilingual language use and television exposure and preferences: The case of Belize 1

This paper discusses the relationship between the language use patterns of multilinguals and their media preferences and exposure. Specifically, it examines the language behavior of multilinguals in Belize where television is available in both English and Spanish. A survey of Belizean high school students conducted in both languages, asked about their sociolinguistic patterns and media preferences and exposure. The results indicate that the frequency of a particular language's use correlates with preferences for and exposure to television in that language. This relationship is more pronounced when specific cultural programming is considered.     

Framing pre-service English language teachers’ identity formation within the theory of alignment as mode of belonging in community of practice

This study investigates the identity formation of pre-service English language teachers in a multilingual setting, through examining their narratives and interviews under the lens of Wenger’s (1998) alignment as a mode of belonging in a community of practice (CoP). It was found that the alignment manifested by the participants lacks negotiability and shared ownership of meaning, which inhibits them from moving towards full participation in the CoP. What eventually results in this form of alignment is a language teacher identity rife with notions and practices anchored on monolingualism, native-speaker norms, and subtractive multilingualism.     

Multilingualism and curriculum: A study of how multilingual learners in rural Kenya use their languages to express emotions

This study is part of a larger project related to multilingualism and education in rural Kenya. We examine how Grade 8 learners use their three languages (Nandi, Swahili, and English) when they discuss experiences elicited by two short video clips representing happiness and sadness as basic emotions. Previous research indicates that use of the mother tongue is preferred for expressing feelings; however, we find that learners neither prefer their indigenous language nor convey the most fluent emotional stories in this language. We problematise this finding, and further discuss the connection between school languages and intention within the national curriculum.     

Languages,script and national identity: struggles over linguistic heterogeneity in Switzerland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

For centuries, Switzerland has been a multilingual country (which currently has no less than four official languages.) Furthermore, one of those languages, German, is characterised by bigraphism (i.e. the coexistence of two different type styles). This article discusses the role played by language and writing systems in the great educational scheme that was designed to create a shared national identity among Swiss people – despite the friction caused by cantonal and local idiosyncrasies, different cultural backgrounds, and deep-rooted traditions. It focuses on the timespan from the mid-nineteenth century to the end of the First World War, a period during which nation-states were formed all over Europe. The findings show how language and writing systems were intertwined with local, cantonal and national identities in a state (Switzerland) that had no uniform national language. It was through the use of language and writing that ideas of ‘us’ (herein, the Swiss) and ‘others’ (herein, the non-Swiss) were constructed, disseminated and perpetuated.     

Emancipatory and critical language education: a plea for translingual possible selves and worlds

Language is the main resource for meaningful action, including the very formation of selves and psychosocial identities, shaped by practical norms, beliefs, and values. Thus, language education constitutes one of the most powerful means for both social reproduction and social production and ideological maintenance and utopian innovation. In this paper, we attempt to emphasise the invaluable psychosocial, political, economic, and cultural function of language education in order to propose a critical view of the current transition from the monolingual to a multilingual paradigm. We maintain that multilingual approaches tend to serve the neoliberal framework and reproduce its systemic inequalities. Therefore, we argue in favour of emancipatory multilingual practices that could embody a translingual pedagogy capable of promoting the development of capabilities, the recognition of otherness, and the cultivation of diversity. Rooted in critical theory, namely in Foucault’s notion of subjectification and Freire’s view of conscientisation, an emancipatory translingual pedagogy would enable and empower every learner to synthesise a contextually creative field of new semantic and pragmatic relationships. Critical language education would enhance the ethos of biophilia that fosters what we term the poetics of communality and selfhood, that is to say, the proactive commitment to expanding symbolic and existential novelty.     

Monument Wars: Washington,DC, the National Mall,and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape

SELF‐CONSUMING ARTIFACTS: THE EXPERIENCE OF SEVENTEENTH‐CENTURY LITERATURE. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972. pp. 432+xiv. $12.50.     

南非高等教育语言政策的演变与现行多语制政策的实施困境

语言在南非的教育领域始终是一个有争议的问题。在高等教育层面,南非的语言政策经历了英殖民地时期的单语制、南非联盟时期的添加型双语制、种族隔离时期的减少型双语制,到民主新南非的多语制。目前,南非多语制的政策主张和高校的语言实践存在着很大的差异:英语的地位日益显赫,阿非利加语的地位不断下降,而非洲本土语言被边缘化。语言实践中的单语倾向日趋明显。本文在系统梳理南非高等教育语言政策发展历程的基础上,从历史、政治、经济、文化、教育和法令政策等多个角度分析了现行多语制政策的实施困境。     

The Moroccan educational context: Evolving multilingualism

This article begins an investigation of the educational system of Morocco and its context of language diversity. It examines the Moroccan cultural environment and the ways the multilingualism and education of its people has been and continues to be influenced by geography, colonization periods, religion, and history. The effects of the Educational Charter are presented as the linguistic panorama that delimits biliteracy development in Morocco and serves to highlight issues faced by nations such as the United States and the Netherlands. The development of an educational model that acknowledges and validates linguistic complexity and local goals and circumstances is recommended.