scholarly journals ‘We don’t talk Gypsy here’: Minority language policies in Europe

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
William S. New ◽  
Hristo Kyuchukov ◽  
Jill de Villiers

AbstractThe Roma constitute an ideal case of educational injustice meeting linguistic difference, racism, social marginalization, and poverty. This paper asks whether human-rights or capabilities approaches are best suited to address issues related to the language education of Roma students in Europe. These children are disadvantaged by not growing up with the standard dialect of whatever language is preferred by the mainstream population, and by the low status of the Romani language, and non-standard dialect of the standard language they usually speak. We examine language education for Roma students in Croatia, the Czech Republic, and Bulgaria, describing similarities and differences across contexts. We explain weak and strong version of language rights arguments, and the ways these principles are expressed, and not expressed in education policies. Sen’s capabilities approach can be employed to generate contextualized visions of education reform that speak directly to disadvantages suffered by Roma children.

Author(s):  
Wenyang Sun ◽  
Xue Lan Rong

Language education is becoming an increasingly important topic in education in Asian countries, especially as schools in Asian countries have become more multilingual and multicultural as a result of rapid urbanization and globalization. A comparative analysis of the issues in language education reform in Asian countries—using China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore as examples—shows that, historically and currently, English language education policies are shaped by various underpinning ideologies such as linguicism, nationalism, and neoliberalism. English can serve as a vehicle for upward socioeconomic mobility, or an instrument of linguistic imperialism, or both, in Asia contexts. These ideologies, through language education policies and reforms, impact the status as well as the pedagogy and promotion of the English language. There is a trend and a need with regard to addressing critical consciousness in English education in order to counter the forces of linguicism and neoliberalism in an increasingly multilingual, multicultural, and globalized world.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (7) ◽  
pp. 1460
Author(s):  
Jie Li

Australia, as a multicultural and multilingual country, has been highly appraised by international linguists and statesmen for its formulation and implementation of language policies. Over the past years, linguists, statesmen, educators and residents have been devoting themselves to the further improvement of language education policies and laws, and the implementation of bilingual education for Aboriginal people. They have gradually resolved language problems, and most importantly, preserved linguistic and cultural diversity. This has set a successful example for China to follow. Under such circumstance, the proposed research, based on sociolinguistic theories concerning language policy and language planning, makes implications, suggesting how our country should proceed from the actual situations to take more practical measures and formulate better policies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-45
Author(s):  
Gizem Arslan

English language is now the most commonly used lingua franca all over the world and has become an international language. Consequently, learning English is an important objective in the education system in every country as well as the EU member countries. This status of English language results in some fundamental changes in the foreign language education and foreign language teacher education policies of almost every country globally. This paper addresses the question whether the European Profile for language teacher education affects the foreign language teacher education policies and reforms in Turkey. The study also focuses on the general European profile for foreign language teacher education on Turkey contexts as well as the influence of the European profile for language teacher education on the foreign language teacher education reforms in Turkey. Keywords: English language, foreign language education, language teacher education profile in Europe, language teacher education reform in Turkey


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hang M. Le

While there is growing attention to language as a central issue in education for refugees, this policy area still appears to be dominated by an apolitical, technical, and instrumentalist perspective. Through a comparison of language-in-education policies in two refugee camp contexts, Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya and the refugee camps along the Thai-Myanmar border, this paper demonstrates how language policies are always deeply political in nature. In refugee contexts in particular, language policies in education reflect and reproduce existing power dynamics that can exclude refugees from decisionmaking processes about their own future. In Kakuma, language issues in education are decided by the international humanitarianism regime based on efficiency and costeffectiveness over the linguistic rights of the refugee community. Even when refugees are in control in the Thai-Myanmar refugee camps, decisions over the language of instruction are still political choices that serve to exclude many people.


Author(s):  
Marco Civico

AbstractThe objective of this paper is to develop an simulation model able to test different language education orientations and their consequences for the EU population in terms of linguistic disenfranchisement, that is, the inability of citizens to understand EU documents and parliamentary discussions should their native language(s) no longer be official. I will focus on the impact of linguistic distance and language learning. Ideally, this model would be a tool to help EU policy makers make informed decisions about language practices and education policies, taking into account their consequences in terms of diversity and linguistic disenfranchisement. The model can be used to force agents to make certain choices in terms of language skills acquisition. The user can then go on to compare different scenarios in which language skills are acquired according to different rationales. The idea is that, by forcing agents to adopt certain language learning strategies, the model user can simulate policies promoting the acquisition of language skills and get an idea of their impact. In this way, the model allows not only to sketch various scenarios of the evolution of language skills among EU citizens, but also to estimate the level of disenfranchisement in each of these scenarios.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (Suppl 1) ◽  
pp. s23-s29
Author(s):  
David B Duong ◽  
Tom Phan ◽  
Nguyen Quang Trung ◽  
Bao Ngoc Le ◽  
Hoa Mai Do ◽  
...  

Medical education reforms are a crucial component to ensuring healthcare systems can meet current and future population needs. In 2010, a Lancet commission called for ‘a new century of transformative health professional education’, with a particular focus on the needs of low-income and-middle-income countries (LMICs), such as Vietnam. This requires policymakers and educational leaders to find and apply novel and innovative approaches to the design and delivery of medical education. This review describes the current state of physician training in Vietnam and how innovations in medical education curriculum, pedagogy and technology are helping to transform medical education at the undergraduate and graduate levels. It also examines enabling factors, including novel partnerships and new education policies which catalysed and sustained these innovations. Our review focused on the experience of five public universities of medicine and pharmacy currently undergoing medical education reform, along with a newly established private university. Research in the area of medical education innovation is needed. Future work should look at the outcomes of these innovations on medical education and the quality of medical graduates. Nonetheless, this review aims to inspire future innovations in medical education in Vietnam and in other LMICs.


Multilingua ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Attila Gyula Kiss

AbstractThis article is a contribution to the hitherto scant literature on learning a historical minority language and on language ideologies in the context of a study abroad program in Hungary, Debrecen. I analyse the language ideologies of the decision makers in Hungary and in the Debrecen Summer School in relation to the teaching of Hungarian to the neighboring peoples. Drawing on interactional data of participants from Romania, the perspective of learning Hungarian as a historical minority language is examined. The present article combines a historical approach with language ideologies by focusing on an institution offering language education. Language ideologies are presented as they appear in the larger historical discourses, contemporary documents, and media interviews. I briefly outline the major turning points in the history of the institution which also reflects the changing language ideologies and cultural politics of Hungary. The qualitative discourse analysis of interviews and the conclusion of this ethnographic study demonstrate that language ideological positions in relation to the teaching and learning of Hungarian have been firmly located in historical and cultural contexts. Discourse analysis of various data demonstrates that, on the one hand, the course providers have espoused competing ideologies of who the learners should be as well as how to present the country and the culture, while, on the other hand, showing that the learners have had to negotiate prejudice and stereotype rooted in discourses about the often burdened history.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 188-193
Author(s):  
Huma Hyder

Progressive Globalization established the necessity of workforce to possess excellent communication skills in multiple languages. Areas such as tourism, trade, media, technology, science, and others use common languages. However, countries like China, South Korea, and so forth discussed the need to teach one foreign language at primary as well as secondary school level and hence developed education policies that focused on teaching English as a foreign language or second language. Some countries like Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and India already have English language as a second official language. Hence, English Language Education was considered as second foreign language which was accepted and now it is considered as a symbol of aspiring quality education in a national as well as international perspective. In 21st century, English is considered as an international link language which is been widely accepted by people across the world. Although, English language has a historical heritage of British Empire, it is best used to develop an individual’s cultural, technological, scientific and material needs that competes with the society. It is believed that language learning is not just acquiring the skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Language learning is also about the language competence and the ways communicative competence has been applied in an integrated manner. English language learning is not just an educational issue, it also addresses the issues of the society, national development, and personal advancement. In the present scenario, English Language acquired an inclusive place in most of the societies, especially in India. As a result, English Medium Schools have gained immense popularity which responds to aspiration of the people. This paper tries to present the significance of English as a Second language. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the significant pedagogies or methodologies used in schools to teach English as English language plays a crucial role in the education sector.


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