This paper identifies several key issues that have emerged through the debate over English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), and suggests a practice-based perspective--which treats language not as a fixed system but as an emergent product of speakers' practices--as a guide for reconsidering some fundamental assumptions of the ELF research project. In…

Language, whether indigenous or foreign, is a marker of identity. The language that a man speaks, the names he bears, the songs he sings, the tribal marks on his cheeks, his country's national anthem, coat of arms and national flags are symbols of personal and national identity. Language education policy, which shapes a man's global and local view…

In this contribution I present an overview of Italian in Malta, the third language of Malta, focusing on the role of this language within educational institutions and other domains of society. Italian was one of Malta's official languages till 1936 and, historically, it was used mainly within administrative and cultural spheres of society. Contact…

In this study we explored variation in the countability of nouns in Outer Circle, Expanding Circle and lingua franca Englishes, a phenomenon which is frequently cited as a marker of Inner Circle norms in TESOL and of endonormative and emerging varieties in the Outer and Expanding Circles. We inspected a set of mass nouns like "information" and…

Penn State Hazleton sits at the very edge of town, on the top of a large hill, literally, as far removed from Hazleton as it possibly can be. Only a handful of professors actually live in Hazleton, and nearly all students return home for the weekend. Compared with the main campus, the student population at Penn State Hazleton is quite diverse.…

The late nineteenth-century expansion of public schooling in Australia from an initial focus on the elementary phase to post-primary provision, and then to a more systematic secondary education over the early to mid-twentieth century, went hand in hand with the emergence of new populations of children and young people--a new constituency. In turn,…

This study explores the implications of Canada's official bilingual status on young immigrant adults who are presently studying at the undergraduate level at university. More precisely, I examine how these young adults have experienced and judge French as a second official language (FSOL) learning in "English-dominant" regions of Canada.…

As a language, Irish is unique to Ireland and is, therefore, of crucial importance to the identity of the Irish people, to Irish culture and to world heritage. The Irish language however has had a turbulent and traumatic history and has endured a complex and varied relationship with the Irish people. Since the foundation of the Irish Free State,…

In this review the authors considered all the documents pertaining to the teaching of reading in Botswana primary schools from independence to the present. The purpose was to get the big picture with regard to the status of reading education. The results are reported in four categories: (1) Reading in the Classroom; (2) Reading and Policy; (3)…

Four out of five immigrants to Canada speak a language other than English or French as a first language. Immigration is increasingly transforming francophone minority communities. Allophone children acquire minority status on multiple levels within French-language schools, where they can become both a linguistic minority and a cultural minority…

The formulation of a languages-in-education policy (LEP) in Ireland illustrates some challenges at the macro- and micro-levels. A clamour for policy has reverberated through language education institutions in Ireland within the last decade. This paper explores and discusses: (1) the trajectory of an LEP in Ireland from initial formulation to…

This article looks at how mother-tongue English speakers and those who do not have English as a mother tongue discuss the complex questions that swirl around the "global" hegemony of English when given an opportunity to discuss these "directly" with one another. The article does so via an analysis of a series of online…

Disparities emanating from South Africa's apartheid history still pose a number of challenges to the country, especially in education. Since the transition to democracy in 1994, the prescribed government school curriculum has undergone several revisions in an endeavour to set standards and provide instruction of a high quality. On the language…

In this paper, we focus on comments on language issues from a historical perspective. The concept of the layperson (non-linguist) is discussed to identify laypeople and lay comments in history when the modern concept of a linguist did not yet exist. Two studies show how the historical perspective complements modern research on folk linguistics.…

The author of this chapter argues that the failure of Spanish language education policies in the United States to educate both Latinos and non-Latinos has to do with the clash between three positions--(a) the English language, characterized by U.S. educational authorities as the unique and powerful lingua franca; (b) the Spanish language, as…