This study examines whether adult second language (L2) learners of an ungendered first language (L1) are sensitive to gender congruency (grammatical feature absent in the L1) and noun animacy (semantic feature present in the L1) when processing L2 gender concord and whether L2 proficiency level determines such sensitivity. To address these…

This survey gives an overview of research into language teaching and learning in New Zealand over a five-year period, including the context of that research. The majority of New Zealanders are monolingual English speakers, yet the country faces complex linguistic challenges arising from its bicultural foundations and the multicultural society it…

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…

Early years' immersion education programmes can be either monolingual or bilingual, and their objectives can range from language maintenance and/or enrichment to early second language learning, depending on the context of implementation. Here we examine some of the key issues and policy concerns relating to immersion education in the early…

This article explores the potential of dual-language cross-cultural peer review and how it improves on traditional monolingual and monocultural peer review. Drawing on scholarship related to international exchange programmes, peer review, and two-way immersion programmes in the United States as well as data collected while facilitating the…

In their study of language ideology, Valdes, Gonzalez, Lopez Garcia, and Marquez (2003) found evidence of a pervasive monolingualist ideology or "discourse of monolingualism" in college-level Spanish departments. This discourse, which mirrors national language ideologies in the United States, is premised on notions of nationalism, linguistic…

Until recently, the assumption of the language-teaching literature has been that new languages are best taught and learned monolingually, without the use of the students' own language(s). In recent years, however, this monolingual assumption has been increasingly questioned, and a re-evaluation of teaching that relates the language being taught to…

Native speakers show systematic variation in a range of linguistic domains as a function of a variety of sociolinguistic variables. This article addresses native language variation in the context of multicompetence, i.e. knowledge of two languages in one mind (Cook, 1991). Descriptions of motion were elicited from functionally monolingual and…

This paper aims to (re)engage ESL with the broader literacy debate, by calling for a better recognition of what literacy means for second language learners within contemporary Australian education systems, and acknowledging the specialist professional knowledge that ESL teachers bring to the mainstream. The literacy debate that has shaped so much…

Metalinguistic skills may develop differently in multilingual and monolingual children. This study investigated effects of immersion in Cherokee as a second language on young children's (4;5-6;1) skills of noticing morphological forms/patterns in English, their first language, by comparing English past tense skills on two nonword and two real-word…

This colloquium discussed a multilingual approach to language learning, language teaching and language assessment in school settings. This approach implies looking at language acquisition and use from a holistic perspective, taking into account not only the target language but all the languages known by the learner; such a perspective brings…

There has been increasing acknowledgment of the need to pursue studies related to nonnative English-speaking (NNES) professionals. In the last 10 years, a number of studies have discussed the experiences of non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs) in different educational settings and situations. However, the experiences of the NNES graduate…

In recent decades, the number of school-aged linguistic-minority students in the United States has increased dramatically. Society at large and public schools in particular must be prepared to respond to these students' needs. In public education, the bulk of this responsibility falls on teachers, who are called upon to apply educational policies…

Early bilingualism acquired from home or community is generally considered to positively influence cognitive development. The purpose of the present study was to determine to what extent bilingualism acquired through a second-language immersion education has a similar effect. Participants included a total of 106 French-speaking eight-year-old…

In 2005 the BBC reported that in reply to a survey conducted by the European Commission, 66% of English respondents indicated that they spoke no language other than their mother tongue. This proportion was far higher than in any other European Union nation taking part but compares fairly favorably with the United States, where one-fourth of adults…