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It is well-established in both scholarship and policy documents that students’ home language practices can be leveraged as a key resource for their learning. However, it can be challenging for teachers to embed students’ language resources in class activities in ways that link to wider learning objectives. We report how the inclusion of home language literacy practices can both enhance English language learning and promote multiliteracies. Data are drawn from a design-based study on the incorporation of home languages in the teaching of English. In the article, we focus on the teaching and learning that occurred in the classroom of two English as an Additional Language (EAL) teachers. Data collected comprised lesson sequences, teacher reflection, student work samples and student reflection. It was found that teacher-initiated support for home language literacy practices led to positive student engagement. The support included giving an active role to bi/multilingual teaching assistants and Google Translate.

Recently, the incorporation of students’ home languages into monolingual classrooms has been reinvigorated by a scholarly focus on extended linguistic repertoire. In bilingual programs, ideas of language separation have traditionally influenced teaching and learning as a way to protect the minority language, but there is a growing call to engage with the complexity of students’ language practices. In this article, it is suggested that the English-medium (dominant language) classroom can be an effective site for exploring how to leverage and affirm students’ home language practices in bilingual education, and also to support the minority language in the program. Data are drawn from a design-based study that investigated the transition of a Japanese–English primary bilingual program from 30% of instruction in Japanese to a 50:50 program. As part of the study, a Foundation teacher and a Year 5/6 teacher worked towards English curriculum objectives by incorporating languages their students spoke at home, including Japanese, into the English-medium classes. Findings revealed that some Foundation students did not immediately draw on home language practices, instead choosing to use Japanese, whereas the Year 5/6 students demonstrated ambivalence towards Japanese but not towards other language practices.

The term ‘CLIL’ has been used in Australia for over a decade, and the approach has helped to invigorate languages education in both primary and secondary schools. In particular, the flexibility of ...

For many years now, knowledge production at universities and in countries like Vietnam has been framed by centre/periphery discourses. In this paper, we suggest that interpreting academics’ researc...

In Australia, content and language integrated learning (CLIL) is commonly implemented as a way to encourage innovation in language teaching. This paper explores how Japanese can also be used to innovate the teaching of content. Qualitative data are drawn from a Year 8 science Japanese CLIL classroom in a secondary school with an opt-in CLIL program. In the class, a monolingual (in English) science teacher was co-teaching with a Japanese language teacher. Findings from observations, after-class reflections, teacher and student interviews, a student survey and work samples revealed that students were highly engaged with the Japanese component of their science lessons. Kanji was further positioned as a way for students to deepen their understanding of scientific concepts. However, there also appeared to be a separation in the way both teachers and students spoke about Japanese language use and learning science. Implications of these findings are discussed in the paper.

Despite the recent emphasis on oral English language proficiency in the Iranian education system, the teaching of oral communication remains a challenge for secondary school English language teachers. In this article, we suggest that this, in part, relates to the continued emphasis on literacy practices. The article explores the approach taken by three Iranian junior high school English language teachers to teaching oracy during a summer school task-based intervention. Data were gathered through observations and interviews, and third generation activity theory from Engeström (1996; Engeström 2001) was used to analyse teachers’ practices. Findings revealed that, while trialling aspects of task-based pedagogies, the teachers’ attention to oracy increased. However, they retained a strong traditional focus on literacy teaching, which had an effect on their approach to oracy and also appeared to constrain their movement towards less-controlled spoken language. This small-scale study offers insights into approaches to oracy teaching while employing task-based pedagogies in foreign language contexts like Iran. In this context, English literacy has been the historical focus, the Roman alphabet is new for the students, and there is often limited exposure to oracy practices outside the classroom context (Sadeghi and Richards, 2015).

In this article, we address the epistemological conflict inherent in the relationship between named languages and translanguaging theory. Following with interest Turnbull’s (2016) reframing of fore...

Translanguaging pedagogy offers a way to differentiate between students’ varying linguistic repertoires when embedding an additional language across the curriculum. In this article I draw on positioning theory to show the relevance of teacher positioning to translanguaging pedagogy and differentiation. Differentiation is discussed in relation to qualitative data drawn from two Australian secondary schools. In one school a Japanese language teacher collaborated with a History teacher on a History unit, and in the other school three Japanese language teachers jointly taught a Geography unit. Findings revealed that the different ways teachers positioned their students influenced students’ use of the target language. Further, teacher positioning was found to lead to student differentiation in the first school but not in the second school.

This article explores the kinds of teacher knowledge promoted in TESOL-related curriculum standards in five jurisdictions (Australia and England at the national level, New York City and New York State in the United States, and Ontario, Canada, at the subnational level). Such documents are increasingly important in defining, and potentially undermining, the professional status of specialist TESOL knowledge and roles in schools. Part of the influence of teacher standards is through policy transfer, and the examples analysed here were selected for their status as models for the drafters of an emerging policy framework in Victoria, Australia. Building on an emerging theoretical tradition focused on pedagogical content knowledge, the analysis identifies contrasting paradigms of teacher expertise that vary in depth and relative importance attributed to knowledge of language. The authors argue that the differing constructions of pedagogical content knowledge across jurisdictions imply different kinds of teacher roles that are potentially in tension. The three kinds of positioning that the authors identify are generalist teacher of language and literacy, teacher as TESOL specialist, and teacher of emerging bi/multilinguals. The analysis suggests that greater attention should be given to how teacher knowledge is framed in educational policy, with regard for coherence, practicability, and broader professional expectations. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Language teachers are positioned differently depending on whether they are L1 or L2 speakers of the target language. In this article I suggest that, in language teacher education, it can be useful to think explicitly about this positioning as it pertains to both languages rather than just one. I propose a relational two-language continuum based on the constructs of authenticity and legitimacy. The objective of the continuum is to help pre-service foreign language teachers gain legitimacy through two languages in Australian language classrooms. Given the prevalence of monolingual educational structures in Australia, the continuum is primarily viewed as a tool to help a diverse cohort of pre-service teachers think about how to increase communicative target language use in mainstream language classrooms.

Integrationist policies that promote the mainstreaming of English language learners are well established in many English-speaking countries. This has led to the embedding of English as an additional language (EAL) methodology in teacher education, and also to the notion of collaboration between English language teachers and content area teachers. Teacher positioning is integral to the processes of collaboration, and in this article it is argued that both sociocultural identity constructs and the notion of dilemmatic spaces can be used jointly to explore this positioning. A framework that draws upon these two theoretical perspectives is discussed. It was developed to investigate pre-service teachers’ (PSTs’) perceptions of collaboration with EAL teachers, and is applied to three secondary PSTs who were undertaking an EAL methodology course in an Australian university.

In this article we introduce the special issue: Language(s) across the curriculum in Australian schools. The special issue includes a focus on English as an additional language in mainstream classes, Indigenous education, heritage languages and foreign languages, and we give background to these different – though frequently overlapping – contexts. By considering context, we seek to demonstrate the timeliness and importance both of the special issue and of a focus on the experiences of students, teachers, parents and members of the community in bilingual and multilingual initiatives. Despite the empirical focus being Australian schools, we understand that the findings may resonate with other setting where monolingual ways of thinking are dominant. We conclude this introductory article by providing the structure and overview of the special issue.

In Australia, although content and language integrated learning (CLIL) has been introduced in some mainstream schools, monolingual structures prevail. In this article, I suggest that translanguaging pedagogy may be a useful way of thinking about the integration of language and content in the Australian mainstream context, but that attention initially needs to be paid to affordances, or institutional opportunities and constraints. The qualitative study under discussion in the article investigated affordances associated with teachers’ choices around embedding Japanese across the curriculum in three Government secondary schools. Five teachers were observed using Japanese to teach – or support the teaching of – a subject area and four were interviewed. Significant affordances were found to be curriculum-related school structures, collaboration and CLIL training. Although these affordances differed from school to school, collaborative practices were found in the school structures of all three schools, and CLIL...

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has been gaining in popularity and is influencing ways in which various non-European countries approach bilingual education. For example, some Australian bilingual programmes are now being officially referred to as CLIL programmes. Although CLIL methodology shows potential outside Europe, this article argues that certain aspects of CLIL should be subject to scrutiny before programmes are adopted in an Australian context. In the article, these aspects relate primarily to organisational and affective factors, which are considered to have a substantial influence on successful programmes. The article specifically addresses Australian primary and secondary public education because public bilingual education programmes may offer a way to address the high attrition rates and the decline in languages taught. The article will focus on ways in which CLIL arose and is defined through the European context for which it was designed. Then it will identify some of...

This article explores how reflective practice may be facilitated among pre-service teachers preparing to teach in culturally diverse classrooms. The significance of the mentor teacher’s ability to reveal her/himself as a reflective practitioner in order to promote student reflection is well documented. The article specifically addresses one teacher educator’s approach to offering mentor support with a focus on reflective practices related to cultural diversity. She explores how her ethnographic doctoral study on the classroom participation of adult South Sudanese students in different Australian learning environments has informed her own practice as a teacher, and ways in which her teaching philosophy and values were influenced by the sustained reflection needed to complete the study. By making explicit an aspect of her reflective practice, she aims to add to the growing body of literature on how to engage pre-service teachers meaningfully in reflection on their own classroom practice, especially in relat...

This article highlights student co-regulation of teaching practices as a way of exploring how L2 students' language and pedagogical needs can be met in university support classes. Integration rather than assimilation – or adapting to the needs of the students rather than leaving students to face the exigencies of the new learning environment alone – is the focus of the article. Data are taken from a qualitative study of south Sudanese former refugees attending an Australian university. In this study it was found that teachers used their authoritative position to adapt their teaching to the students' apparent needs to differing degrees. Students benefitted from some modifications in teaching practices, but their ambivalent reactions to discussion-based teaching, in particular, proved to be an obstacle to their learning in the support classes.