Access to the full text of the published version may require a subscription. Rights Stephanie Stokes and Thomas KleeThe University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Paul FletcherUniversity College Cork, Ireland AbstractThis study examines the morphosyntactic development, specifically verb morphology, of typically-developing Bangla-speaking children between the ages of two and four. Three verb forms were studied: the Present Simple, the Present Progressive, and the Past Progressive.The study was motivated by the observations that reliable language-specific developmental information is not available in Bangla (which affects research in the areas of speech and language therapy and computational linguistics) and that properties of these verb forms render them suitable for exploring how language typology contributes to the learnability of verb morphology in emerging child language. Children's performance on these forms was assessed through form-specific language elicitation tasks and spontaneous language samples.Three stages of development of verb morphology were identified by consideration of accuracy of production and error types. Keywords 2Morphosyntactic development of Bangla-speaking preschool children Language acquisition, language typology, verb morphology, Bengali, Bangla

There is a strong belief that employment is a crucial avenue for the empowerment of young women, through income, greater autonomy, and bargaining power within the family. However, experiences of workplace sexual harassment undermine these potential gains. This qualitative study among agro-processing factory workers and domestic workers in Uganda and Bangladesh demonstrates that sexual harassment is widespread in both formal and informal workplaces, while domestic workers are particularly vulnerable to its most severe forms.

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In this commentary, I refer to the issue of typological differences and how they impact the acquisition data by discussing findings from Bangla. Previous and ongoing studies of the acquisition of Bangla reveal that several claims regarding children’s linguistic trajectory, emerging from some of the well-studied languages, are not confirmed. I also argue that language acquisition research is not adequately supported in the Global South and propose a few ways to support research on under-studied languages.

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Globally the COVID-19 pandemic has altered academic practices significantly. A nationwide online education had been in effect in Bangladesh since March 2020 due to the closing down of schools for an indefinite period. While several studies have explored the effects of such a sudden shift in the learning environment for the older students, the primary level students have not received as much attention. The present study examined the changes adopted, with regard to classroom teaching and assessments, in the English language classes at the primary levels in Bangladesh. A qualitative study was conducted with a pool of teachers (n= 7), students (n= 10), and parents (n=9) who were interviewed to obtain a comprehensive view regarding the new teaching-learning scenario. The responses showed that the adjustments made to the academic practices might have been enough to stop the system from coming to a halt, but they were inadequate and ineffective in addressing the language needs in a virtual environment.

Employment is believed to be a crucial avenue for women’s empowerment, yet widespread workplace sexual harassment undermines this in many countries. Young and unmarried women from poor backgrounds are particularly at risk, but workplace sexual harassment is often overlooked in debates on decent jobs for youth. Based on case study research with factory and domestic workers in Bangladesh and Uganda, this briefing explains how social and gender norms constrain young women’s voices and agency in response to sexual harassment. It offers recommendations towards developing the laws, mechanisms and culture needed to reduce workplace sexual harassment and empower young women in their work.

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