Language policy is generally seen as a national-level decision regarding which languages the state will support, and in which public domains. However, the reality is that language policy plays out at ...regional and local levels as well. In fact, it could be argued that the most important instantiations of language policy are those which directly determine local-language behaviors in institutions such as schools, government and civil society. Using data drawn from Kenya, this article examines the formulation and implementation of language policy as it plays out in the primary classroom environment. The relationships between language policy implementation at the classroom level and students' early literacy outcomes are explored, giving insight into how the degree of adherence to language policy in the classroom intersects with student achievement. The article presents findings using language use as a predictor, school and student-level economic status as control variables and student achievement as the outcomes. The country-level differences in language policy implementation between Kenya and Uganda, and the impact of those differences on student achievement in the two countries, are also examined. The article has implications for the establishment of a learning environment in the multi-language primary classroom, and demonstrates the extent to which choices about language policy implementation can present a serious challenge to effective education.
Focusing on writing instruction within an era of international curricular reform, this study analysed classroom observations, educator interviews, and documents related to Japanese elementary writing ...instruction. A deductive approach using discourses of writing framework and an inductive approach to Japanese cultural practices uncovered beliefs and practices of writing instruction. Discourses of writing such as skills, creativity, process, genre, and social practice were found within cultural practices such as repetition, experience, and inner-most heart. These discourses influenced Japanese writing instruction, yet also created tension between cultural practices and current reform efforts aimed at expression and independent thinking.
Background: Mother-tongue education in South African primary schools remains a challenge to policymakers. The situation is problematic in multilingual lok’shin (township) schools where the lok’shin ...lingua is not recognised as ‘standard’ language. This article raises the controversial possibility of positioning of lok’shin lingua in a formal education langscape.Objectives: The article’s first purpose is to highlight recent international and local research which depicts controversies surrounding mother tongue instruction in primary schools. The second purpose is to conceptualise lok’shin lingua as a dialect present in children’s everyday vocabulary.Method: Data was gathered through a qualitative approach using interviews. The interviews were conducted with parents and educators at a township in South Africa.Results: Findings show notable differences in school language of instruction and the languages children speak outside school.Conclusion: Mother tongue teaching is problematic as it is incongruent with learners’ language repertoires. Therefore, a call is made for the recognition of lok’shin lingua in educational contexts as a way to promote more research into mother-tongue education.
This article relates the language ideologies of Pakistan in general, and its call centers in particular, with the language policies and practices of the latter. The specific policy focused upon is ...the commodification of English with a near-native (American or British) accent as linguistic capital. These accents are indexed to the desired foreign identities which the workers of call centers perform in telephonic interaction with clients as part of their sales strategy. This crossing over to native-speaker linguistic identities is not always successful. When successful, however, some workers in the call centers pass as native speakers in certain contexts and for certain purposes. Such practices and the policies upon which they are contingent are consequences of language ideologies that entail language discrimination against the workers of the call centers by the Pakistani English-using elite, and vice versa. (English, commodification of language, accent, linguistic capital, language policy, identity, passing, crossing, call centers, Pakistan)
Denne artikkelen setter søkelyset på flerspråklige lærere i danske og norske skoler. Artikkelens empiriske materiale og teoretiske og analytiske fundament hentes fra doktoravhandlingene våre ...(Daugaard, 2015; Dewilde, 2013), som begge er lingvistisk etnografiske studier. Daugaards feltarbeid foregår ved en dansk skole og kombinerer feltnotater med videoopptak og bilder, mens Dewildes feltarbeid finner sted ved to norske skoler og baseres på en kombinasjon av feltnotater og lydopptak. I artikkelen kombineres et empirisk fokus på flerspråklige lærere og deres profesjonelle praksis med en teoretisk forståelse av språk som oppfinnelse, og i forlengelsen av dette anses flerspråklige lærere som oppfinnere. Dette perspektiveres med Conteh, Copland og Creeses (2014) konseptualisering av myter om språkundervisning og språklæring. Artikkelens analyser viser hvordan de flerspråklige lærerne utfordrer mytene i sin pedagogiske praksis og i møte med andre lærere og skoleledelsen, slik at de framstår som forkjempere i en transformasjon av språkpedagogisk praksis i skolen.
This article describes linguistic features used to depict fictional
American Indian speech, a style referred to as “Hollywood Injun
English,” found in movies, on television, and in some literature
...(the focus is on the film and television varieties). Grammatically, it
draws on a range of nonstandard features similar to those found in
“foreigner talk” and “baby talk,” as well a
formalized, ornate variety of English; all these features are used to
project or evoke certain characteristics historically associated with
“the White Man's Indian.” The article also exemplifies
some ways in which these linguistic features are deployed in relation to
particular characteristics stereotypically associated with American
Indians, and shows how the correspondence between nonstandard, dysfluent
speech forms and particular pejorative aspects of the fictional Indian
characters subtly reproduce Native American otherness in contemporary
popular American culture.I would like to
thank the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and the University of Michigan for
their support. This manuscript has also benefited from the following
individuals' comments and suggestions: Gerald Carr, Eve Danziger,
Philip Deloria, Joseph Gone, Jane Hill, Judith Irvine, Webb Keane, William
Leap, Bruce Mannheim, and the anonymous reviewer. For their time and
effort, I am truly grateful. All errors are my own.
The basic structure and rhetoric of national language policy in multilingual Singapore has remained essentially unchanged since independence with four official languages positioned within the ...national quadrilingual framework and used in all public spheres, and individual bilingualism encouraged in the private sphere. However, also since independence, there has been an active undercurrent of inconsistencies, suggesting that the apparent top–down, uncontested language policy is in fact an active contested space, particularly in how these policies are implemented in schools. Specifically, we are interested in language shift, maintenance and medium of instruction policies, their consistencies and discontinuities. To understand the apparent tension between static quadrilingual language policy and planning and the dynamic reality of policy shifts, we adopt Bourdieu’s metaphor of field. In so doing, we take analyses beyond a Fishmanian domain-based framework (Fishman in La Linguist 1(2):67–88,
1965
) which frequently informs language policy analysis in Singapore but fails to capture fully the paradoxical shifts and impacts that different fields have on each other with respect to language and the power dynamics involved (Savage and Silva in Cult Sociol 7(2):111–126,
2013
. doi:
10.1177/1749975512473992
). We refer to Chinese and Indian language varieties as our primary examples, showing how a field analysis illuminates the different developments and paradoxes in policies for these languages.
Access to quality education largely depends on the extent of English language usage. Despite the use of English language as the medium of instruction in Ghana, the performance of students in the West ...African Senior High School Examination is still worrying. The study is designed to examine the influence of mother tongue on Students' performance in English language in Adu Gyamfi Senior High School. The study investigated if mother tongue is exclusively the cause of the students' abysmal performance in English Language in Senior High School Certificate Examination and to explore if there are other intervening factors. Fifteen (15) respondents (constituting five males and five females) with a focus group involving five students who are graduates of the West African Senior High School Certificate from Adu Gyamfi Senior High in School in Ghana were used. All the respondents had low grades in the certificate examination. The study employed exploratory case study using thematic analysis with semi-structured open-ended questionnaires. The results revealed that even though mother tongue interference is the core factor of the students' poor performance in English language in the West African Senior High School Certificate examination, there are other factors contributing to students' poor performance in English language. These factors include poor teaching methods, lack of textbooks, language background and lack of professional growth and development of teachers. Suggested measures that could enhance students' achievement in English language are given.
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