It would diminsh the value of Britain's multilingualism, promote a monolingual ideology and discriminate against speakers of other languages.
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Articles on Multilingualism
Displaying 1 - 20 of 23 articles
Africa's current situation has a parallel in European history - the Reformation and the changes it wrought in terms of language exceptionalism.
South Africa must be seen as a country for speakers of all its official languages rather than an English-only elite.
Africa needs a new strategy for mother-tongue based bilingual education, from primary through to tertiary level.
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.
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.
To understand the full scale of the world's linguistic diversity, we should be thinking about languages and how speakers relate to them.
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?
Ethical engagement in multilingual communication is about mutual respect. More importantly, it's about shaping a shared future through face-to-face communication.
Turns out the way you are exposed to new languages could be the key.
Teachers need training and support to deal with increasing diversity in their classrooms.
Schools and universities in post-colonial contexts still operate within the logic of coloniality. This is starkly illustrated by their language policies.
The EU may claim it is "united in diversity" but the reality is very different.
There are many layers of complexity at play in the way that South African schools use and teach languages.
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.
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.
The stories of and attitudes to three particular languages – English, Swahili and Luganda – provide an interesting starting point for a debate around Uganda's language policy.
There is little value in translating academic texts into "high" or "deep" versions of African languages. Most students read and speak their mother tongues in a far more colloquial fashion.
In Uganda, private schools are simply ignoring a policy that calls for pupils to learn in a mother tongue rather than in English for the first three years of their education.
Using more than one language when teaching and learning science in schools can greatly enhance concept development. This in fact goes to the heart of science.
Top contributors
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Professor of African Language Studies, Rhodes University
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Senior Lecturer in the School of Languages and Applied Linguistics, The Open University
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PhD Candidate in Language and Literacy, University of Cape Town
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Associate Professor in Language Education, University of Cape Town
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Lecturer, Department of African Languages, Makerere University
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Lecturer in African Languages, Makerere University
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Emeritus Professor of African Linguistics, University of Leipzig
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Lecturer in Information Literacy, Cape Peninsula University of Technology
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Professor, Faculty of Education, Stellenbosch University
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PhD candidate in Language in Education, University of Cape Town
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Director of the Institute for the Study of English in Africa, Rhodes University
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Associate Professor in Applied Linguistics, University of South Australia
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Subject Head, African Languages, Rhodes University
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Senior Lecturer in African Languages, Rhodes University
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PhD Candidate, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia
