In recent years, the UK, like many other English first-language-speaking countries, has encountered a steady and continuous increase in the numbers of non-native English-speaking learners entering state primary and secondary schools. A significant proportion of these learners has specific language and subject learning needs, many of which can only…

In this article, I report on the first stage of a whole school literacy project," Embedding Literacies in the KLAs" (ELK), which aims to support multilingual learners to access the literacies they need for high stakes curriculum learning. As it is "quality teaching" that has been found to have the greatest impact on student…

The query of language education policies in Algeria appears to be among the most crucial issues involved in current language research. It is believed that Algeria absorbed heavy colonial impact not only in its social life but also in its educational policy. The present paper attempts to deeply describe foreign language policy in Algerian education…

This article explores some of the distinctive challenges in Chinese language education in schools and discusses how the development of the "Australian Curriculum: Chinese" has responded to these challenges. It details how the curriculum framework outlined in the "Shape of the Australian Curriculum: Languages" (ACARA, 2011)…

There is still relatively little research on how well the CEFR and similar holistic scales work when they are used to rate L2 texts. Using both multifaceted Rasch analyses and qualitative data from rater comments and interviews, the ratings obtained by using a CEFR-based writing scale and the Finnish National Core Curriculum scale for L2 writing…

Krashen (2004) has advocated that narrow reading, i.e., reading a series of texts addressing one specific topic, is an effective method to grow vocabulary. While narrow reading has been championed to have many advantages for L2 vocabulary learning, there remains a relative dearth of empirical studies that test the impact of narrow reading on L2…

Uganda introduced the use of mother tongue as medium of instruction in primary schools in 2007. This was meant to promote interaction and participation in the learning process and improve children's proficiency in reading and writing. Drawing elements of interaction and participation from the socio-cultural theory, the child-centred pedagogy was…

The Welsh language, which is indigenous to Wales, is one of six Celtic languages. It is spoken by 562,000 speakers, 19% of the population of Wales, according to the 2011 U.K. Census, and it is estimated that it is spoken by a further 200,000 residents elsewhere in the United Kingdom. No exact figures exist for the undoubted thousands of other…

An emphasis on developing students' moral and ethical character is evident in the 2013 National Indonesian Curriculum. In this article, I look at how respect for difference is reflected in the 2013 Indonesian National Curriculum, specifically referring to the second key competency area for senior high school English language. I also draw reference…

This article explores how Bourdieu's notion of "habitus" might be employed to shed light on the self-efficacy of primary teachers as they take on an additional specialism when modern foreign languages becomes statutory in primary schools in the new English National Curriculum in 2014. The article argues that Bandura's four principles of…

This paper reports on a study that investigated teachers' perceptions about the significance of intercultural understanding (IU) in the modern foreign languages (MFL) curriculum. The research was conducted in the wake of a National Curriculum revision in 2007 in England that for the first time listed "IU" as one of the four key concepts…

Offering Gaelic medium preschool provision poses particular challenges as most children only encounter Gaelic in the playroom and live in a context heavily dominated by English. Nevertheless, expanding provision for early years education in Gaelic is an important part of ambitious plans to revitalise the language. In this paper we explore the…

The purpose of this article is to show second-language pupils' experiences in school and their understanding of school through analysis of how they talk about the multilingual primary school and instruction. These stories about school life are studied with a life story approach, and the research process can be described in three steps: tell,…

With the development of the English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D) Teacher Resource, the educational needs and outcomes of refugee and immigrant children have been placed on the national mainstream teaching agenda. This new national resource sits alongside a plethora of other resources, known as scales and standards, which have been…

This paper examines whether the Swedish steering documents for English-language education are ethnically biased, that is, whether Swedish culture and language or "Swedishness" are used as norms when teaching and assessing students. To examine whether such bias exists, the central curricula and syllabi from 1994 and 2000, as well as local…