The Swedish educational policy for upper secondary English, which took effect in 2011 and adopts a globalised perspective on language, is explored with respect to how skills and awareness related to local, national, and international roles of English are represented in policy documents. A discourse analytic approach to language policy is used to…

A nationwide technology integration movement, FATIH Project, was initiated by Ministry of National Education. FATIH Project whose main objective is to provide equal opportunities to the learners during compulsory education is made up of many components: Hardware supply, procurement of software and e-content, infrastructure set up, and teacher…

Evaluation is an important aspect in communication in any language as it not only functions to express language users' evaluative stance but also to construct and maintain relations between interactants. In the teaching of languages in addition to English, paying attention to evaluative language contributes to an understanding of the…

This paper is focused on the ways in which social policy and social concerns have impacted upon and shaped provision for students who consider English as an additional language (EAL). It provides an overview of practice and provision in relation to EAL learners in the context of state-funded education in England over the last 60 years in order to…

The paper examines the recent national programme of English language instruction in the Mexican public primary schools, called the "Programa Nacional de Inglés en Educación Básica" (PNIEB). The programme, initiated in 2009 by the Ministry of Education as part of the national curriculum, represents the largest expansion of English…

Developing literacy in two languages can be challenging for young bilingual children. This longitudinal study investigates the effects of bilingualism in the spelling strategies of English-Portuguese speaking children. A total of 88 six- to-seven-year-old bilinguals and monolinguals were followed during one academic year and data gathered on a…

This article discusses the findings of an empirical study that investigated the writing practices in a multilingual, rural, fourth-grade classroom in Kenya. The study was undergirded by Bakhtin's heteroglossia. Analysis of texts indicated that these emergent multilinguals used multiple semiotic resources to maximize the chances of meeting the…

This article reviews recent studies on English language teaching (ELT) in South Korea, where a great deal of research has been produced in recent years in local journals. In this article we review 95 studies from a pool of some 1,200 published between 2009 and 2014 on English language teaching and learning, focusing on research within the public…

Teaching culture in the foreign language classroom has been widely debated ever since its importance was recognized. Current research suggests that centralized "top down" curricular policies can become potential constraints to teaching culture and points to the need for adapting curricula for culture-integrated language learning. This…

The current longitudinal study examines the similarities and differences between primary and secondary foreign language curricula and pedagogy along with the development of motivation for language learning and second language proficiency. Data from 26 English learners of French (aged 10-11) were collected across three times points over a 12-month…

The school population in England is linguistically diverse; according to official data, over one million pupils do not speak English as their first language. All teachers are expected to support English as an additional language (EAL) development as part of their professional responsibility. At the same time, there has been little specific…

Drawing on observational evidence of two classes working on "Romeo and Juliet," one in England and the other in Palestine, this essay explores the nature of knowledge in relation to English as a school subject. It asserts the importance of paying attention to the resources that students, situated in culture and history, bring with them…

The idea of "powerful knowledge" has been developed by Young (2008; 2010; 2012; 2013), who argues for a subject-based curriculum. This notion has created widespread debate within the fields of sociology of knowledge and the sociology of the curriculum. Young's work takes a social realist perspective to describing the academic disciplines…

While the idea of plurilingual competence is widely established theoretically and promoted in European language policies, it is not implemented in educational practice, where separate plurilingualism is still dominant. The idea of languages as autonomous entities is e.g. reflected in the "Common European Framework of Reference for…

This article focuses on the learning affordances of different language and communication curricula in the world. For reasons of space, only two national education systems (Finland and Singapore) and their language and communication curricula are referred to. The accounts of national education systems consist of the identification of mechanisms…