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Language is commonly positioned as an economic resource. Recent debates have argued that policy interpretations of language as economic resource can potentially undermine language positioning and reduce understanding of the cognitive, cultural and social benefits of language learning. In monolingual policy contexts, such a positioning means that only specific languages of immediate economic value are embraced in policy. It also means the broader educational and intercultural long-term benefits of language learning are overlooked. Economic framing also means that language teachers must continually justify the importance of their work and prove the success of their programmes. Failure is often attributed to individual learner factors rather than acknowledging wider societal and programme impacts upon learning success. This paper reports on the factors teachers have identified as essential for success as they endeavour to implement languages programmes (or courses) within challenging policy settings in two English-speaking countries. A range of programme factors emerge as essential for long-term implementation within English-speaking contexts. Above all is the need for executive staff to lead the wider school valuing of languages education for its broader benefits. For language success to move beyond isolated school contexts, policy mandates are needed to ensure more time-on-task for languages in English-speaking countries. This in turn may begin a shift towards public valuing of language learning for broader educational and intercultural benefit.

In this paper we consider parents as unofficial evaluators of success in primary bilingual programmes that are not subject to any standardised bilingual outcomes. Small-scale, opt-in programmes that are reliant on parental buy-in are increasing in Australia. Given the importance of parental choice on the sustainability of these programmes, we seek to understand parents' evaluation of success in their implementation. We apply Mehisto's ([2015]. "Forces Mechanisms and Counterweights." In "Building Bilingual Education Systems: Forces Mechanisms and Counterweights," edited by X. Mehisto, and X. Genesee, Xv-xxvii. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.) framework of forces, mechanisms and counterweights to two Australian studies, and explore the parents' discourse around the success of four primary bilingual programmes as a counterweight to the degree of commitment at the school (force) and the perceived affordances (mechanisms). The implications of the parental evaluations of success on the implementation of the programmes are discussed.

The enduring monolingual mindset in English-speaking countries results in widespread belief that additional language learning takes time away from literacy in the societal language. Yet, extensive research has shown that time spent learning additional languages enhances learners' literacy skills, providing first language literacy is sufficiently supported. This paper examines the achievements of students at four primary schools in Australia, where bilingual programmes were implemented to teach subject content through an additional language. Data from the national standardised literacy and numeracy assessment were gathered to compare students within the bilingual programmes with those not in the bilingual programmes. Results show higher performance for students in the bilingual programmes compared to their peers in monolingual classes. Drawing on data from a broader study of formal and informal assessment in these schools, this paper presents the standardised test results and teacher qualitative beliefs about literacy development. Findings show that the bilingual style of learning suits children irrespective of many contextual factors and that children's literacy in English is enhanced by the addition of a second or subsequent language.

An intercultural stance within languages education has been widely embraced within curriculum planning in Australia. Yet prior research has shown that in implementation the stance may not reach its full potential. A key element of an intercultural stance is a focus on reciprocal understanding and "intra"cultural change. Students must reconsider their own identities in order to better understand others, conceptualising themselves as emerging multilinguals may further strengthen this aspect of intercultural stance. In such a stance identity development is a process, identities are constantly evolving and self-awareness is integral to understanding others. While reciprocity, decentring and consideration of 'self' have each been emphasised within intercultural stance, further emphasis upon multilingual identity could deepen the intercultural experience. This paper theorises a multilingual identity approach to intercultural stance in which multilingual identity intersects with intercultural languages education. This approach synthesises the existing literature on identity, "multilingual" identity and intercultural understanding. The key intersections are identified as: "the inter-relationship of language and culture," "imagined identities," "self-concept," "feelings of belonging and consideration of self and others (reflexivity)."

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 CLIL has led to a range of teachers accessing CLIL training: from teachers in structured programs where schools have committed to organisational change, to teachers driving initiatives where schools have accepted, but not substantially committed to, initiatives. However, although the flexibility has helped more teachers and schools experiment with putting a target language across the curriculum, we propose that the significant role context plays in the implementation of CLIL has implications both for teacher training and for ways in which languages (the target language and the dominant language) are used in the classroom. To illustrate this, we draw on data we collected from six different qualitative studies investigating a total of five primary schools and four secondary schools across the two Australian states of New South Wales and Victoria.

This paper discusses how teachers in a bilingual education programme see their pedagogies and interactions influencing student connection to the languages of the bilingual programme. The teacher perception of the classroom is explored because the classroom is one of the principal settings in which the students negotiate their bilingual identities. The students in this study were involved in two classroom settings within the same school in the Australian government school system. One setting was a so-called "bilingual" classroom where two teachers were present--a native French speaker and a native English speaker--who each used their native language in a team-teaching setting; the other was an "immersion" classroom where one native-speaker French teacher conducted the classes entirely in French. The paper explores the teachers' perceptions of their pedagogies and the co-teacher relationship as factors affecting student bilingual identity negotiation within the Bilingual Identity Negotiation Framework (BINF). This framework positions students' bilingual identity negotiation within the three intersecting spheres of socio-cultural connection, interaction and investment.

Research involving the plurilingualism of young people has begun to focus upon how we must re-conceptualise language learning to acknowledge the language resources of children with plurilingual experiences. This is particularly important in countries like Australia with a traditionally monolingual mindset embedded in policy, education, and the views of much of the community. Growing arguments posit that it is more important to focus on the resourceful use of language than attempts to measure skill, competence, or fluency in one language. In this paper, the movement between languages of children with a range of linguistic repertoires is explored in the Australian context. Data are taken from student and teacher interviews and focus groups with parents across five different primary schools, each with a bilingual education programme. The paper argues that bilingual programmes aimed at monolingual background students can have benefits for more than one kind of plurilingual student. It was found that plurilingual children drew on their home language(s) as a resource in school contexts where other languages were used, showed an increased enjoyment of learning, and developed learning strategies which built on their plurilingual experiences. Additionally, the data showed how teachers in these contexts worked towards expanding their own linguistic repertoires.

There is sometimes an assumption among language educators that students find the transition from school to university language learning a challenging process (see for example Busse & Walter, 2011; Chambers, 2014; Macaro & Wingate, 2004). In this research we set out to explore this assumption through a small-scale study of first-year language learners in one tertiary setting. The findings indicate that for many students the transition is smoother than anticipated and contrary to the assertions in some prior literature in this area. The differences between the secondary and tertiary sectors are undoubtedly significant. By acknowledging these differences, focussing on strategies to facilitate students' transition and suggesting ways to improve communication between secondary and tertiary sectors, this research highlights ways to facilitate successful language learning transition from the secondary to the tertiary sector.

In 2009, the then State Minister for Education in New South Wales, Verity Firth, announced a plan to introduce bilingual education in four primary schools across the state for the National Asian Languages and Studies in School Program (NALSSP) priority languages: Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese and Korean. This paper reports on one aspect of a larger project undertaken by the researchers to examine how the schools, teachers, parents and children in the four schools experienced the implementation of this program and how they viewed the success or otherwise of the program at the end of the first two years of policy implementation. This paper focuses on reporting the perceptions of teachers (the bilingual teachers themselves, the support (classroom and assistant) teachers and senior executive teachers at each school) in relation to the implementation of this innovative and challenging model of languages education in the Australian context. The findings indicate that implementation of such programs is challenging, and that to succeed teachers need support to collaboratively plan, to develop their understandings of bilingual styles of teaching, and that a whole school approach to such a program facilitates smoother implementation.

For young bilingual students a feeling of connection to their background languages and cultures forms one important aspect of their developing identities. This paper addresses some of the findings from a larger study examining students' understandings of their identities as bilingual. The study involved students who are part of a bilingual program that operates in French and English within a government primary school in Sydney, Australia. This paper focuses on the experiences of two students in the study, who both expressed a feeling of connection and bilingual identity associated with both French and English--the languages of the bilingual program and languages that they both use at home. The paper provides a snapshot of two young female students who were interviewed about their languages and bilingualism--Genevieve and Elizabeth (pseudonyms). (Contains 2 figures.)

Imagined identity, which opens up a variety of future possibilities for language learners, has been theorized from seemingly incompatible psychological and sociological perspectives in applied linguistics. Researchers have thus appealed for a transdisciplinary theoretical combination of these perspectives for a more nuanced understanding of language learning in context. This article makes the case for a synergistic theoretical framework of investment and motivation to theorize the idiosyncratic relationship between individuals’ imagined identity and language learning behavior. Empirical findings from a multiple‐case study conducted in Yunnan, in the south‐western corner of China, are presented to demonstrate how this framework enables a nuanced analysis of individuals’ language learning. Findings suggest that the interconnectedness of imagined identity, motivation, and investment is informed by both learner agency and contexts. This paper proposes that learners’ development of imagined identities and ways of investing in learning could be individually different, even under similar circumstances, which indicates the need for personalized teaching to improve learning outcomes. This synergistic framework thus provides implications for pedagogical practices and a need for personalized teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is sometimes an assumption among language educators that students find the transition from school to university language learning a challenging process (see for example Busse & Walter, 2011; Chambers, 2014; Macaro & Wingate, 2004). In this research we set out to explore this assumption through a small-scale study of first-year language learners in one tertiary setting. The findings indicate that for many students the transition is smoother than anticipated and contrary to the assertions in some prior literature in this area. The differences between the secondary and tertiary sectors are undoubtedly significant. By acknowledging these differences, focussing on strategies to facilitate students' transition and suggesting ways to improve communication between secondary and tertiary sectors, this research highlights ways to facilitate successful language learning transition from the secondary to the tertiary sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2009, the then State Minister for Education in New South Wales, Verity Firth, announced a plan to introduce bilingual education in four primary schools across the state for the National Asian Languages and Studies in School Program (NALSSP) priority languages: Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese and Korean. This paper reports on one aspect of a larger project undertaken by the researchers to examine how the schools, teachers, parents and children in the four schools experienced the implementation of this program and how they viewed the success or otherwise of the program at the end of the first two years of policy implementation. This paper focuses on reporting the perceptions of teachers (the bilingual teachers themselves, the support (classroom and assistant) teachers and senior executive teachers at each school) in relation to the implementation of this innovative and challenging model of languages education in the Australian context. The findings indicate that implementation of such programs is challenging, and that to succeed teachers need support to collaboratively plan, to develop their understandings of bilingual styles of teaching, and that a whole school approach to such a program facilitates smoother implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]