Despite reports that multilingual students' academic progress has 'stalled,' researchers find new reasons to be optimistic about how they are faring in US schools.
The combination of knowledge and communication, along with a few other fundamental conditions such as liberty and respect , leads to social, cultural and technological development.
Leaders use translators during the inauguration of President Mr João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço of Angola.
GCIS
Raising the status of the African languages to that of official languages in South Africa post-1994 led to an explosion of translation and interpreting work in local and foreign languages.
In Lower Fungom, Cameroon men sing while working, highlighting the local culture.
Duylinh Nguyen
Jeff Good, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
To understand the full scale of the world's linguistic diversity, we should be thinking about languages and how speakers relate to them.
Far fewer Americans speak a second language than in most other developed countries – and the problem starts in the classroom.
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Whether it's due to native language loss or unsupported high school curricula, the lack of bilingualism in the US is notable. Why can't more Americans speak another language? How should that change?
Language and herbs travel thanks to the Rastafarian community around Cape Town.
David Harrison/Mail & Guardian
Ethical engagement in multilingual communication is about mutual respect. More importantly, it's about shaping a shared future through face-to-face communication.
Schools and universities in post-colonial contexts still operate within the logic of coloniality. This is starkly illustrated by their language policies.
European collaboration: great in theory, exclusionary in practice.
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Traditional African stories often tackle big, occasionally scary and serious themes. This is even true in children's stories – though there's plenty of room for silly fun, too.
Gabriel Kenny, aged five, gets to grips with Mandarin characters as part of a US school program.
Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
There is a new potential coloniser on South Africa's linguistic block. From 2016, Mandarin will be taught in schools – and this will see African languages bumped even further down the pecking order.