This very original, inspirational book globalises our understanding of languages in education and changes our understanding of bilingual and multilingual education from something mostly western to being truly transnational: it spotlights the small, celebrates African and Asian cases of multilingual classrooms and demonstrates that such education is universally successful. Colin R. Baker, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Bangor University, Bangor, Wales, UK A norm-setting work on multilingual education, which combines theoretical perspectives with practical experience from different parts of the globe, this book demonstrates convincingly not only that multilingual education works, but also that, for most developing countries, there is no viable alternative. Ayo Bamgbose, Professor Emeritus, University of Ibadan, Nigeria This excellent volume brings to light the fascinating lived experiences of multilingual education in linguistically rich but resource impoverished countries, and offers important lessons from which we can all learn. Amy B. M. Tsui, Professor , Pro Vice-Chancellor & Vice President, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong This is a book of hope and inspiration. Documenting the significant shift that is taking place in countries around the world in the status and legitimacy of mother tongue-based multilingual education, it represents a giant step towards a "tipping point" where mother tongue-based multilingual education will be normalized as the preferred and, in fact, common sense option for educating the children of the world. Jim Cummins, The University of Toronto, Canada This important book challenges us to think about multilingual education from a different angle––this time putting the periphery at the center. The effect is one of destabilizing old visions and imagining new worlds where multilingual education provides the backdrop for generous understandings of all peoples. Ofelia García, Program in Urban Education, Graduate Center/The City University of New York, USA There are regrettably few detailed accounts of successful elementary school instruction in the pupils' home language, which makes this book with its surprising examples (especially Ethiopia and Nepal but other third world cases) so relevant. Students of language education policy will learn a great deal about the possibility of multilingual education from the chapters of this important book. Bernard Spolsky, Professor Emeritus, Bar-Ilan University, Israel At least half of today’s languages are marginalised and endangered and the attention of the world needs to be focused on these minor and minority languages together with the value of multilingualism. If the book succeeds in enhancing the consciousness of the world towards predicaments of the third world, then its efforts will have been amply rewarded. Debi Prasanna Pattanayak, Former Director, Central Institute of Indian Languages, India Drawing on the most powerful and compelling research data to date and connecting this research to linguistic human rights, this book explores the conditions and practices of robust bilingual and multilingual educational innovations in both system-wide and minority-settings and what it is that makes these viable. It demonstrates how, in countries where educational practices are inclusive of linguistic diversity and responsive to local conditions and community participation, implementation of bilingual education even within limited budgetary investment can be successful.

This second volume of Language Issues in Comparative Education, following the tradition of the first, introduces the state of the field and calls attention to innovations described throughout. The chapters examine language-in-education policy change, describe implementational activities, and present strategic frameworks for research and advocacy.

This collection examines a diverse range of approaches to multilingualism in teacher education programmes across Europe and North America. The authors investigate how pre-service teachers are being prepared to work in multilingual contexts and discuss the key features of current pre-service teacher education initiatives that address the increasing linguistic and cultural diversity evident in classrooms in their respective countries. The focus is not only on migrant-background learners but includes students from Indigenous, autochthonous and heritage language backgrounds, and speakers of minoritised regional varieties. The chapters contextualise, both historically and ideologically, the specific initiatives and measures taken in the participating countries. They also reveal the complexity of each educational context and the role that history, language policies and institutional and programmatic priorities play in the development and implementation of a multilingual focus in teacher education. In exploring how pre-service teachers are being prepared to work in multilingual contexts, the authors take a critical view of how multilingualism itself is conceptualised within and across contexts. The book highlights the valuable impact that explicit instruction on theories of multilingualism, pedagogies in multilingual classrooms and lived realities of multilingual children can have on the beliefs and practices of pre-service teachers.

Over the past 40 years, Jim Cummins has proposed a number of highly influential theoretical concepts, including the threshold and interdependence hypotheses and the distinction between conversational fluency and academic language proficiency. In this book, he provides a personal account of how these ideas developed and he examines the credibility of critiques they have generated, using the criteria of empirical adequacy, logical coherence, and consequential validity. These criteria of theoretical legitimacy are also applied to the evaluation of two different versions of translanguaging theory – Unitary Translanguaging Theory and Crosslinguistic Translanguaging Theory – in a way that significantly clarifies this controversial concept.

This book introduces the Multilingual Approach to Diversity in Education (MADE), a framework that provides an extensive, holistic instrument with research-based teacher indicators for teachers, teacher educators, and administrators to deliver optimal education to multilingual learners in a range of contexts. The authors introduce and provide a theoretical and research-based rationale for the MADE, presenting in turn each of its seven indicators, situating them within current research and theory in multilingualism and education, and providing specific examples of classroom applications. This book will be of interest to academics, teacher educators, pre-service and practicing teachers, and graduate students interested in teaching and researching multilingual learners.

The principles for enabling children to become fully proficient multilinguals through schooling are well known. Even so, most indigenous/tribal, minority and marginalised children are not provided with appropriate mother-tongue-based multilingual education (MLE) that would enable them to succeed in school and society. In this book experts from around the world ask why this is, and show how it can be done. The book discusses general principles and challenges in depth and presents case studies from Canada and the USA, northern Europe, Peru, Africa, India, Nepal and elsewhere in Asia. Analysis by leading scholars in the field shows the importance of building on local experience. Sharing local solutions globally can lead to better theory, and to action for more social justice and equality through education.

Diversity - social, cultural, linguistic and ethnic - poses a challenge to all educational systems. Some authorities, schools and teachers look upon it as a problem, an obstacle to the achievement of national educational goals, while for others it offers new opportunities. Successive PISA reports have laid bare the relative lack of success in addressing the needs of diverse school populations and helping children develop the competences they need to succeed in society. The book is divided into three parts that deal in turn with policy and its implications, pedagogical practice, and responses to the challenge of diversity that go beyond the language of schooling. This volume features the latest research from eight different countries, and will appeal to anyone involved in the educational integration of immigrant children and adolescents.