Chapter 17 Multilingual Education Concepts, Goals, Needs and Expense: English for all or Achieving Justice?

Disjunction between language policy and children's sociocultural ecology – an analysis of English-medium education policy in Pakistan

“…Skutnabb-Kangas et al (2009) claim that 'the faith that an early start in English means good education and ensures success in life is a pernicious myth' (327). In addition, Ferguson (2013) terms the glamorous pull for English as a 'fever,' which in his view is based on rational demands though; however, the 'fever' for English is often ill-informed and misguided for a number of reasons as 'the early introduction of English in primary schools is often ineffective and leads to lowered educational performance' (18).…”

Taking steps towards institutionalising multicultural education – The national curriculum of Finland

“…From the multilingual perspective, which by definition uses more than one language in teaching and in its critical forms emphasises social justice (Skutnabb-Kangas, Phillipson, Panda, & Mohanty, 2009), students are encouraged to use all the languages they know in versatile ways during lessons in different subjects and in other school activities. A 'language-aware school' is now set as a goal, and implies that 'each adult is a linguistic models and also a teacher of the language typical to the subject he or she teaches' (NCC, 2014, p. 26).…”

Plurilingualism inTESOL: Promising Controversies

“…In terms of the former, researchers have observed that many long‐accepted models and concepts in the fields of bilingualism and bilingual education cannot account for situations of extreme linguistic complexity (e.g., Skutnabb‐Kangas, Phillipson, Panda, & Mohanty, ). In current contexts of globalization and migration, this superdiversity is linked to unpredictable and unprecedented variation in individual linguistic repertoires (Blommaert & Backus, ; Vertovec, ).…”