According to a new report from the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), the support offered to young children who speak languages other than English at home varies widely from state to state, and community to community. “As the population of young Dual Language Learners (DLLs) continues to grow, early childhood policies that recognize and address the…
A team from the U.S. has won the 15th “Chinese Bridge” language proficiency competition for secondary school students in Kunming, the capital of southwest China’s Yunnan Province. During the final round on Saturday evening, U.S. team beat out the winning teams from each continent: Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Mozambique, and Australia. The series of contests, which focuses…
According to an analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) of newly released Census Bureau data for 2016, a record 65.5 million U.S. residents over the age of five spoke a language other than English at home. The number is up six million since 2010 and has increased by nearly 34 million since 1990….
In another move to promote relations between these old allies, the Cultural and Scientific Services of the French Embassy in Washington launched a two-part program entitled Community College Abroad in France, in partnership with Community Colleges for International Development and the n+i network (a network of 50 top engineering schools in France). The Community College…
Les Soldates de la Paix – art installation in ParisThe Académie Française, the world’s authority on the French language, has issued a bleak warning against “inclusive writing” which promotes the use of gender-neutral words, claiming that: “The multiplication of the orthographic and syntactic marks that [inclusive writing] requires would lead to a disunited language, disparate…
Greek schools are welcoming in more refugee and migrant children who have been stranded in the country. Major efforts by the Greek Ministry of Education, Research, and Religious Affairs supported by UNICEF to get as many children as possible into school are seen as a crucial step to integrate refugee and migrant children into Greek…
Hundreds gather outside NSW Parliament in Sydney to usher in historic piece of legislation. Photo Courtesy NSW ParliamentNew South Wales (NSW) recently passed legislation that acknowledges the value of indigenous language, and the importance it holds to the country’s First Peoples and to the cultural heritage of NSW. The legislation is a milestone for Australia, as…
It’s a popular belief that alcohol helps improve speaking skills for a foreign language, but the belief can be easily passed off as a perceived improvement instead of an actual improvement. A new study has confirmed, however, that acute alcohol consumption may have beneficial effects on the pronunciation of a foreign language. Many studies have…
The Migration Policy Institute and the National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy have released a new report on the young Dual Language Learner (DLL) population in California. The report was pooled over the 2011-2015 period of children 8 and under, and found that these DLL’s with at least one parent who speaks a language other…
Co-authors on the article are Cecilia R. Aragon and Nan-Chen Chen from the University of Washington and Judith F. Kroll from the University of California, Riverside. Naysayers like to cite the popularity of emoji and emoticons as yet more evidence of the erosion of language and literacy and, perhaps, civilization itself. But studying how people use…