Each of the 7,000 languages currently spoken across the globe is a unique, invaluable mode of cultural, spiritual and intellectual expression. When one of these languages is lost, a vast well of accumulated knowledge and an integral part of a culture’s identity is lost with it – and this is occurring at an unprecedented rate. Without intervention, it is predicted that 50% to 90% of all languages will become extinct within the next 100 years.
UNESCO’s International Mother Language Day, observed on 21 February each year, highlights languages as ‘the most powerful instruments of preserving and developing our tangible and intangible heritage’ and promotes linguistic diversity, multilingualism and language protection.
The theme of this year’s International Mother Language Day is ‘multilingual education is a pillar of intergenerational learning’. Multilingual education policy and practice has a critical role in improving learning outcomes and helping to preserve languages and the intergenerational knowledge and heritage they carry with them.
Griffith Research Online (GRO) provides open access to an array of research to guide multilingual education policy and practice, a snapshot of which is below:
- Blurring English language binaries: a decolonial analysis of multilingualism with(in) EcAL/D education
- Multilingualism and assimilationism in Australia’s literacy-related educational policies
- EAP learners as discourse analysts: Empowering emergent multilingual students
- The drivers of home language maintenance and development in indigenous communities
For more research on multilingual education and linguistic diversity, visit Griffith Research Online.
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