According to the latest report of the (Office for National Statistics [2018]. "Births by Parents' Country of Birth, England and Wales: 2017." UK: Statistical Bulletin), 34% of children born in Britain have at least one parent from another country. With nearly 20% of children in primary schools categorised as speakers of English as an…

Background: Complex syntax is affected by developmental language disorder (DLD) during the school years. Targeting areas of syntactic difficulty for children with DLD may yield useful assessment techniques. Aims: To determine whether wh-movement can be measured in language samples from typically developing mono- and bilingual school-aged children,…

We investigated how bilinguals choose words in a narrative task, contrasting the possibilities of a developmental delay vs. compensatory strategies. To characterize a developmental delay, we compared younger (three to five years) and older (seven to ten years) children's lexicalization of target words (Study 1). The younger children told shorter…

There has been increasing concern over the poor performance and lack of interest in modern language learning among secondary-school students. Although there is some evidence as to the under-achievement of boys in modern languages (ML), there is less information as to the degree to which other factors such as social class, and bilingual or…

For young bilingual students a feeling of connection to their background languages and cultures forms one important aspect of their developing identities. This paper addresses some of the findings from a larger study examining students' understandings of their identities as bilingual. The study involved students who are part of a bilingual program…

This comparative inquiry examines the multi-/bilingual nature and cultural diversity of two distinctly different linguistic and ethnic communities in Montreal--English speakers and Chinese speakers--with a focus on the multi/bilingual and multi/biliterate development of children from these two communities who attend French-language schools, by…

In this article, the author describes the French immersion program at Meriden Junior School, an Anglican school for girls from pre-Kindergarten to Year 12 in Sydney. Four teachers (one of whom is the coordinator) and three assistants are involved in the program. They include six French native speakers and one non-French-born teacher who speaks…

This study explores the way in which bilingual children of primary school age who have become dominant in English are learning to be literate in the language of the home using dual language books provided by the school. It reports on how the mothers and their children used both texts to transfer skills from one language to another; to negotiate…

Approximately 217 students in grades 1 to 3 of the Berlin public and parochial school systems participated in this bilingual program. Seventy percent of the students were either from French speaking families or had a French ethnic and cultural background. The goals of the program were outlined as follows: (1) to continue to design, develop, and…

A study indicates that students in French immersion programs in Canadian schools achieve superior progress in French and equal skill in English relative to students in partial immersion classes or traditional second-language study. (CK)

This article discusses the two main types of trilingualism, individual trilingualism and societal trilingualism, or multilingualism. Research directions in third language learning are also noted. (CLK)

This report discusses the findings of an evaluation of the bilingual education program in the schools of the Niagara South Board of Education (Ontario). (DB)

Preparation of the manuscript was supported in part by grants from the Canada Council and the (Canadian) Defence Research Board. Discusses advancements made in bilingual programs in the U. S. and Canada. (DS)