There is a call for multilingual pedagogies including the use of literacy in several languages in early childhood education. However, many practitioners find it difficult to challenge the dominant language ideologies and are unsure of how to develop literacy practices in multiple languages. This paper is based in Luxembourg where a multilingual…

This essay explores the theme of the double in Umberto Eco's "The Island of the Day Before," Joseph Conrad's "The Secret Sharer" and Zivko Chingo's "The Big Water." While traditionally the double is connected with the evil alter-ego of the protagonist, what brings these three works together (by an Italian, English and…

We investigate the production of subject and object "who"- and "which"-questions in the Italian of 4- to 5-year-olds and report a subject/object asymmetry observed in other studies. We argue that this asymmetry stems from interference of the object copy in the AGREE relation between AgrS and the subject in the Spec of the verb phrase. We show that…

Australian research on immigrant languages has paid little attention to interactional approaches to language alternation as identity construction, and sites other than the family and the mainstream school. We argue for the need of studies that take into account a wider range of sites, in particular "community" sites, and adopt…

Learning has been moving out of classrooms into virtual and physical spaces for over a decade now (Naismith, Lonsdale, Vavoula, & Sharples, 2004). It is becoming mobile "in space", i.e. carried across various domains (workplace, home, places of leisure), "in time", as it encompasses different moments of the day, and in…

Purpose: This follow-up study assessed (a) the influence of phonological working memory (pWM), home literacy environment, and a family history of linguistic impairments in late talkers (LTs); (b) the diagnostic accuracy of a task of nonword repetition (NWR) in identifying LTs; and (c) the persistence of lexical weaknesses after 10 months. Method:…

Second languages (L2s) are often learned through spoken and written input, and L2 orthographic forms (spellings) can lead to non-native-like pronunciation. The present study investigated whether orthography can lead experienced learners of English[subscript L2] to make a phonological contrast in their speech production that does not exist in…

TLC Pack stands for Teaching Languages to Caregivers and is a course designed to support migrants working or hoping to work in the caregiving sector. The TLC Pack resources range from A2 to B2 level of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), and will be made available online in the six project languages: Dutch, English,…

While access to technology presents language learners with a view of the second language (L2) and culture that is very broad and current, foreign language curricula tend to be outdated and much narrower in scope, and they usually do not incorporate critical perspectives. Following the lead of researchers who seek to use education as a bottom-up…

Drawing on theories of family language policy and literacy environment, this inquiry explores and describes how family language policy is managed through literacy resources and literacy related activities in transnational families in the UK. A total of 66 families, each with at least one child between the age of 2 and 8, participated in this…

A group of Italian language tutors attended sessions dedicated to Italian language teaching and learning that were included in the SIS Biennial Conference in 2015. Following the conference, the group suggested that a publication of the proceedings to mark the first of these meetings would be a useful resource for all language tutors. To five of…

The learning difficulty known as dyslexia affects up to ten per cent of the adult population. In current teaching practice in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), however, there is still little awareness of how dyslexia-friendly language course materials can be created. Language learning materials, although often delivered in novel digital…

A remarkable example of Spanish-Italian contact is the Spanish variety spoken in Buenos Aires (Porteño), which is said to be prosodically "Italianized" due to migration-induced contact. The change in Porteño prosody has been interpreted as a result of transfer from the first language (L1) that occurred when Italian immigrants learned…

Distributed Morphology (DM; Halle & Marantz 1993; Marantz 1997) is founded on the premise that the syntax is the only computational component of the grammar. Much research focuses on how this premise is relevant to the syntax-morphology interface in DM. In this dissertation, I examine theory-internal issues related to the syntax-semantics…

This study explores whether chat users are able to extend prior, apparently completed posts in the dyadic online text chat context. Dyadic text chat has a unique turn-taking system, and most chat softwares do not permit users to monitor one another's written messages-in-progress. This is likely to impact on their use of online extensions as an…