In October 2023, a new deaf student, "Zuri," showed up in my second grade classroom. This often happens. Parents move into and out of the district for work, and it is common to get a new student in the middle of the year without warning. Zuri's eyes were wide when she came into the classroom, and she looked scared. Who were all these…

French immersion (FI) programs in Canada have historically served predominantly Canadian-born, English-speaking students and families in their endeavour to learn both of the country's official languages, French and English. However, FI programs are becoming increasingly culturally and linguistically diverse as a result of increased global…

This Advice provides important information on the national context and describes best practice to support senior leaders, practitioners, and education authorities in evaluating and planning for improvement in Gaelic Education. It is based on evidence from inspections, reviews and validated self-evaluation, covering all sectors of Gaelic Education…

Decolonising the languages curriculum is a radical requirement to critically reexamine the way in which the languages curriculum has been formed in any context. It requires the examination of the power dynamics which have led to the dominance of certain languages over others and which languages are and are not accorded resources in schools,…

Reading and writing translate to centuries of shared knowledge and can be expanded upon with the ability to acquire multiple tongues. In response to today's most widely spoken languages, Chinese/English and Spanish/English dual language immersion programs continue to grow across the United States. Unfortunately, the lack of uniformity in the…

This article focuses on the reported experiences of three focal students who participated in a Spanish/English dual language program in their southern California school district throughout their elementary and middle school years. All three students identify as Mexican-origin and speak Spanish, English, and the Indigenous language of Zapoteco and…

On Mackworth Island, not far from Portland, the Mackworth Island Preschool Program at the Maine Educational Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing/Governor Baxter School for the Deaf (MECDHH/GBSD) helps deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing children flourish. At MECDHH/GBSD, instructors immerse students, 3-5 years old, in American Sign Language…

This report documents how native English speaking students enrolled in the two-way dual language program at Austin Independent School District (AISD) performed on STAMP 4Se, a Spanish-language proficiency test during the 2016-2017 school year.

Translanguaging practices come into play in social interactions between bilinguals when they are making use of all their shared linguistic resources and blending their languages in natural ways. Stemming from these practices is translanguaging pedagogy, which is designed so that students in school-based additive bilingual programs can benefit from…

This paper tackles the important question of practitioner engagement and is the first to present an overview of relevant Gaelic medium education (GME) research. Following the formal inception in 1985, GME is now more widely available across Scotland. An overview of GME is presented and situates provision within the other Celtic minority languages…

At the intersection of social studies and world language curricula are opportunities to explore students' prior learning with vocabulary-rich content designed to support language acquisition goals. "Funds of knowledge" is defined as socio-cultural, economic, and historical knowledge from home and community settings. The instructional…

Effectively engaging students in mathematics discourse is challenging, especially in a language other than the one in which you learned mathematics. Teachers must manage the academic as well as social function of language. In Spanish-English bilingual classrooms in the U.S., changing the language of instruction to Spanish may not be enough to…

This paper provides a descriptive account of the growing landscape of school choice in Canada through a comparative analysis of funding and student enrolment in the public, independent and home-based education sectors in each province. Given that the provinces have responsibility for K-12 education, the mixture of public, independent and home…

This report summarizes feedback from Austin Independent School District (AISD) elementary dual language teachers who participated in focus group discussions in January and February 2016. Teachers gave their opinions about the program components and suggestions for how to improve the program implementation.

Growing numbers of schools are offering dual-language classes, where teachers split instruction between English and a second language. The numbers of dual-language-immersion programs have been steadily growing in public schools over the past decade or so, rising to more than 2,000 in 2011-12, according to estimates from national experts. That…