scholarly journals Toward a policy of heterogeneity in Canada: The journeys of integration of multilingual student teachers of FSL in Ontario in plurilingual times

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Byrd Clark

This article details the critical need for a policy of heterogeneity in Canada. Canada is changing, with a growing number of youth with multiple, overlapping and complex identities and linguistic repertoires. From this end, I argue that we can no longer look at language, identity,or community as separate, static or fixed categories and in this vein, we need official and public policies that support linguistic diversity and value heterogeneity. Drawing upon my ethnographic and sociolinguistic research which investigates multilingual youth training to become teachers of French as a Second Language (FSL) in Ontario, I demonstrate the importance of sociocultural research as regards multilingualism for language planning and policy, particularly when it comes to creating policies that reflect people’s use of language(s) rather than simply seeing people as language users. In my fieldwork, I have found that the impact of multilingual practices tend to blur traditional boundaries related to languages, identities, cultures and education. This article contributes to language policy and planning as it aims to put forth new ways of conceptualizing multilingualism in relation to the development of theory, policies and professional practice in the fields of language education, teaching and public policy.

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-47
Author(s):  
Ikhlas Gherzouli

Summary The paper aims to present a critical review of language policy development in Algeria since its independence (1962) to present time. It takes the policy of Arabization, an important turning point in Algerian history that was troubled with serious problems, as an example of language planning in the country. Data was gathered from policy documents, laws, and newspaper articles. It was then coded into themes before it was analysed employing a documentary research method. To provide a methodical discussion, the first part of the paper explores language policy and planning in Algeria. The second part discusses the impact of Arabization on the country’s current state of policy development in light of the debates over the national educational reforms of 2003. The third part highlights the quandary that language planners face during the processes of language planning and policy making. Lastly, the paper concludes with an evaluation of the process of language policy development in the country. The paper argues that in order to foster sustainable multilingualism and achieve effective educational reforms, a keener recognition of Algerian linguistic diversity by the government is imperative.


2011 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ming-Hsuan Wu

This overview and analysis of language policy and planning (LPP) in Taiwan since the seventeenth century is written from the perspective of language ecology and uses Cooper’s three-part approach: status planning, acquisition planning and corpus planning. The paper investigates how languages and their speakers have interacted with one another and with their sociocultural and political contexts, and how different policies at different times have altered the local language ecology. Three emerging factors that are changing the local ecology are further identified. As the first step to successful LPP is a detailed understanding of the local language ecology, it is hoped that the analysis presented here will provide insights for future LPP in Taiwan.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Zuzana Straková

Abstract Teaching foreign languages has adopted various approaches over the history. The last decades of dominance of the Communicative language teaching brought the tendency to insist on the target language use in the classroom in order to allow the immersion into the language. The European Union, however, started to support linguistic diversity more than two decades ago and it has left an imprint on the way foreign language teaching is approached today. Inclusion of plurilingualism in traditional school context requires the readiness of language teachers to use other languages as well as encourage learners to use their prior language experience. The present study presents the results of a questionnaire survey among student teachers measuring their attitudes and readiness to implement more than one additional language in their practice. The participants of the study (n = 118) are all future teachers of English language at both undergraduate and graduate level. The results of the survey indicate a generally positive attitude towards plurilingualism and at the same time ability of the students to rely on more than one language while teaching. The results, however, raise quite a few questions and imperatives for the content of teacher training programmes as well as for the organisation of language education in general.


Author(s):  
Aziz MOUMMOU

Language policy and planning (LPP) has undergone an epistemological turn. Early LPP works approached linguistic diversity as a problem; especially for the newly independent states, but in today’s globalized world, multilingualism is the norm. A major issue that characterizes contemporary LPP in Morocco and needs further investigation is the interaction between macro-policies and local practices. Most top down language policies face resistance from speech communities. The purpose of this paper is to illuminate the role of micro-planning and local agents in implementing a workable language policy. The aim is to reduce the gap between LPP research and local practices by using an ethnographic approach. Ruiz orientational model and Spolsky’s management theory provide a rich theoretical framework. Micro-planning can translate central policies into local practices.


2002 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 122-123
Author(s):  
Timothy Reagan

Language policy and pedagogy, as its subtitle suggests, is dedicated to A. Ronald Walton, who died quite young in 1996. Walton had served as the deputy director of the National Foreign Language Center (NFLC) in Washington, D.C., since its founding in 1986, and the contributors to this volume all have had direct or indirect connections to the NFLC. Further, the essays in this volume are all related to issues and areas that were of concern to Walton during the course of his career. All of that having been said, this work is considerably more than a typical Festschrift; it is in fact a timely and important contribution to the growing literature dealing with both language policy and planning studies and contemporary issues in U.S. foreign language education policy and practice.


2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 152-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy H. Hornberger ◽  
Aldo Anzures Tapia ◽  
David H. Hanks ◽  
Frances Kvietok Dueñas ◽  
Siwon Lee

A decade ago, Hornberger & Johnson proposed that the ethnography of language planning and policy (ELPP) offers a useful way to understand how people create, interpret, and at times resist language policy and planning (LPP). They envisioned ethnographic investigation of layered LPP ideological and implementational spaces, taking up Hornberger's plea five years earlier for language users, educators, and researchers to fill up and wedge open ideological and implementational spaces for multiple languages, literacies, identities, and practices to flourish and grow rather than dwindle and disappear. With roots going back to the 1980s and 1990s, ethnographic research in LPP had been gathering momentum since the turn of the millennium. This review encompasses selected ethnographic LPP research since 2000, exploring affordances and constraints of this research in yielding comparative and cumulative findings on how people interpret and engage with LPP initiatives. We highlight how common-sense wisdom about the perennial gap between policy and practice is given nuance through ethnographic research that identifies and explores intertwining dynamics of top-down and bottom-up LPP activities and processes, monoglossic and heteroglossic language ideologies and practices, potential equality and actual inequality of languages, and critical and transformative LPP research paradigms.


AILA Review ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 11-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeroen Darquennes

After a very broad description of what language policy and planning is about this paper presents an overview of some of the current preoccupations of researchers focusing on language policy and planning as one of the blooming fields of applied linguistics. The current issues in language policy and planning research that are dealt with include ‘the history of the field’, ‘language practices in different domains of society’, ‘ideas and beliefs about language’, and ‘the practical side of language policy and planning’. The brief sketch of current issues in language policy and planning research is meant to serve as the background for a preliminary discussion of the impact of language policy and planning research on society. That discussion takes the different ‘roles’ of academics working at university departments and doing research on language policy and planning as a starting point.


2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa J. McEntee-Atalianis

This article contributes to recent critical discussion of ‘agency’ in language policy and planning (LPP) research and practice. It argues that whilst scholars have widened their purview to consider the impact of individual actors on LPP in different contexts, the field has not developed or embraced theoretical and methodological frameworks which satisfactorily model or investigate the network of actor impact on LPP. This article analyzes the current status of LPP at the United Nations (UN). Taking the ‘Actor-Stage Model’ (Zhao & Baldauf, 2012) as a theoretical point of departure, the article discusses and analyzes the most recent review of LPP within the UN. It becomes apparent that a network of agents is responsible for LPP development, influence and implementation within the organization. This ‘web of influence’ is schematized using a network model which accounts for the implicit and explicit responsibility of multiple actors / ‘experts’ within and outside of the organization. A sub-analysis of institutional LPP goals reveals the ‘polycentric’ and ‘relational’ nature of influence within and across multiple ‘nodes’. It is argued that the network model and the concept of ‘web of influence’ is crucial in de- and re-constructing particular LPP goals and serves as a useful heuristic for those investigating or working within similar sites of inter/transnational integration as well as LPP in other macro, meso or micro-contexts.


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