This study examined how cross-age peers (ages 5-6 and 9-10) used and responded to Spanish (L1) as they read and talked about informational texts together written in English (L2). Grounded in sociocultural discourse analysis, we analyzed video recordings and transcripts from 10 sessions of peer reading in two elementary schools. We coded student…

This case study examines the pedagogical measures taken for Spanish development for a group of bilingual preservice teachers in a university-based teacher education program in Texas. Classroom language policies were developed collaboratively and deliberately throughout the semester, which included discussion and negotiation between instructor and…

The presence of the L1 in classes where English is taught as a Foreign Language (EFL) has always provoked debate. As a result, the role of the L1 remains a matter of discussion in the bilingual education classroom. Moreover, the presence of both the L1 and a foreign language can be controversial in programmes where both the L1 and the foreign…

Translanguaging theories emphasize a fluid, dynamic view of language and differ from code-switching/mixing theories by de-centring the analytic focus from the language(s) being used in the interaction to the speakers who are making meaning and constructing original and complex discursive practices. Trans-semiotizing theories further broaden the…

The role of the first language (L1) in second language (L2) learning has been widely discussed and researched in the second Language Acquisition (SLA) literature. Benefits of L1 use have been found for vocabulary acquisition, and in facilitating comprehension thereby alleviating student anxiety. Many teachers appear to consider L1 use as a…

Content-based education programmes, in which a second/foreign language (L2) is used as the medium of instruction when teaching non-language content subjects, aim at both content and L2 learning. With such dual goal in mind, and with the rapid expansion of the programmes to contexts where students might have only basic L2 proficiency, there have…

This paper investigates child agency in Ethiopian and Colombian refugee families in New Zealand. Emerging scholarship has highlighted ways in which children's actions may influence family language policies. However, the existing descriptions are typically not embedded in a wider social theory, and have generally not included refugees. This study…

The purpose of the paper is to shed light on potential driving forces that guide principals' decisions on how to implement language policies in their schools in Kazan, Russia. Kazan is the capital of Tatarstan and home for the second biggest ethnic group in Russia, called Tatars, whose native language proficiency is gradually declining. After…

This article deals with the reality and complexity of emergent translanguaging in foreign language classrooms. The influx of international learners of Chinese has resulted in linguistically diverse classrooms, posing huge challenges to the monolingual teaching approach that prevails in most Chinese language classrooms. This paper explores what…

Due to the monolingual self-understanding of European nation-states, migration-induced multilingualism and the language mixing practices it triggers are not usually acknowledged as resources for learning within mainstream classrooms. The term translanguaging has recently been put forward as both a way of describing the flexible ways in which…

The present study aimed at investigating whether L2 learning affects phonological short-term and working memory and first language (L1) development. The performance of a group of 31 4- to-5-year-old sequential bilinguals attending an International School on tasks assessing phonological short-term and working memory and linguistic performance in L1…

This study presents a sociolinguistic analysis of a Korean-English bilingual child's code-switching practices from the perspective of language socialization. The ethnographic description and discourse analysis of a migrant Korean family's interaction in the US home shows how the social meanings of languages and language ideologies present within…

Models of monolingual literacy propose that reading acquisition builds upon children's semantic, phonological, and orthographic knowledge. The relationships between these components vary cross-linguistically, yet it is generally unknown how these differences impact bilingual children's literacy. A comparison between Spanish-English bilingual and…

This paper reports on a classroom-based investigation into a tertiary English-medium instruction (EMI) programme in China, with a focus on subject teachers' perceptions and practices in EMI and students' motivation and needs in English learning. Given a lacuna in existing EMI research, it examined how EMI instruction was delivered by subject…

The developmental process of reading acquisition is frequently conceptualized as a self-organizing mental network consisting of lexico-semantic, phonological and orthographical components. The developmental nature of this network varies across languages and is known to impact second-language learners of typologically different languages. Yet, it…