Volume 1, Issue 2

In the first paper inaugurating this journal, Bernard Spolsky makes a case for critical educational linguistics. Reviewing both the critical tradition going back to the Frankfurt School and many of the strands of work that can be seen as part of critical applied linguistics, he concludes that there is an important role for critical educational linguistics as long as it follows in the liberal tradition and avoids so-called wokeism. He also argues that a great deal of work in support of language diversity and bilingualism has in any case been in this critical tradition, and that the addition of the term may not add much to what has gone before. Building on this proposal for critical educational linguistics, this paper raises concerns about basing a critical educational linguistic project on liberal foundations, invoking ideas such as ‘wokeism,’ or assuming a long history of critical work in mainstream educational linguistics. The paper concludes by suggesting alternative foundations for critical educational linguistics.

This article draws on Lefebvre’s production of space to understand the cultural negotiations and underlying meanings of being and becoming an international student. Rich and multiple data sources including video/audio recordings of classroom interactions, field notes, interviews, diaries, and institutional documents from a Vietnamese student’s participation in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and mainstream courses in a New Zealand university (NZU) were drawn upon. The findings of this study show that the student’s engagement in both the new social space and academic environment of NZU is mediated through negotiations and reflections of her Vietnamese-ness and constant comparison of the host culture with that of Vietnam and how her experience of navigating the social space of New Zealand influences her perceptions of Vietnamese-ness. International students’ socialization is mediated through engagement with materialities of space, mastering the norms of their social space, participating in activities, and reflecting on their own life and learning trajectories.

In this article we suggest a framework for researching the study abroad experiences of English language teachers, and analyze data from a study of higher education English teachers from four Southeast Asian countries who completed graduate studies at a Canadian university. We present data from interviews with 10 participants which took place in their home countries four years after taking the program. Research questions and interview questions relate to the relevance of the program to participants’ professional practice, the challenges they faced when applying knowledge in their local contexts, and the opportunities and benefits that came with completing a Canadian graduate program. In our data analysis, we highlight a combination of local, national, and transnational factors, as well as cultural differences, that affected the application of knowledge learned in Canada. We conclude by considering a number of implications for educators involved in study abroad programs for English language teachers.

The field of language education has mobilized diversity paradigms during the last several decades. Paradigms, such as world Englishes, English as a lingua franca, and translanguaging, have illuminated how linguistic forms and practices vary across locations, contexts, and individual linguistic repertoires. Although they aim to raise teachers’ and students’ engagement with linguistic heterogeneity, they are largely founded on the postmodern/poststructuralist valorization of linguistic hybridity and fluidity, which tends to neglect language users and thus overlooks the human differences that also inform that heterogeneity. True linguistic diversity and justice can be attained by both problematizing structural obstacles and recognizing that ideologies and structures are entrenched in unequal and unjust relations of power regarding race, gender, class, and sexuality, which influence diverse language users to communicate in certain ways. This conceptual paper problematizes the conventional focus on language in the discourse of linguistic diversity within language education, especially English language teaching, and proposes that we pay greater attention to language users. While recognizing that social justice is not a universal notion, we endorse an antiracist justice-informed contextualized approach to teaching about linguistic diversity by illuminating how diversity and power among language users as well as broader structures impact the nature of communication.

The history of plantation slavery and European colonization in the Caribbean has left in its wake a rich and complex linguistic landscape, a colonial education structure, and a set of contradictory (creole/colonial) identities and language attitudes that make it fertile ground for a critical examination of language education policy development in the region. Using Jamaica, a former British colony as an illustrative case, this article takes a critical look at the historical and current framing and development of the multilayered “onion” that is language education policy in the Caribbean – a uniquely creole/colonial region with conflicting language ideologies. I examine the goals, actors, processes, and challenges and possibilities of LEP implementation (Nero, Shondel. 2018. Challenges of language education policy development and implementation in Creole-speaking contexts. In Jodi Crandall & Kathleen Bailey (eds.), Global perspectives on language education policies , 205–218. New York: Routledge and TIRF – The International Research Foundation), and also look ahead, recommending ways that we might craft viable 21st century education and LEP goals for the Caribbean and other former colonies around the world, given their colonial legacy and transnational present and future.

Third language acquisition in educational contexts is nowadays expanding in monolingual and multilingual contexts. One reason is the mobility of the population that results in an increasing number of home languages that are different from the school languages. Another reason is the spread of the teaching of English as a third language in multilingual school contexts where two other languages are also taught. Third language acquisition is a complex phenomenon that shares many characteristics with second language acquisition but also has some specific differences related to the effect of bilingualism on third language acquisition, multilingual learners’ repertoires and the specific role of metalinguistic awareness in language learning. The aim of this paper is threefold: 1) to look at the potential advantages of bilingualism on L3 considering the great diversity of situations in which an L3 is learned in school contexts; 2) to look at the similarities and differences between second and third language acquisition and 3) to discuss how pedagogical translanguaging can enhance bilingual resources so that L3 learners can develop an optimal use of their resources.