Language Learning and Multilingualism – serie

This book intends to look into CLIL teaching professional practice through the prism of reflection. It offers a comprehensive coverage of a CLIL teacher’s features, their attitudes to the approach, teaching methodology, assessment, materials development, cooperation with other CLIL and non-CLIL teachers, professional development, expectations and beliefs. Furthermore, it focuses on CLIL teachers’ positive and negative emotions experienced in relation to CLIL. As a CLIL trainer I spend a lot of time with CLIL teachers trying to guide them in the process of teaching in CLIL but also to help them face many challenges and overcome obstacles which often discourage them from working in the CLIL environment. Being greatly inspired by the ongoing research in the field but also by my CLIL trainee teachers I felt there was a need to conduct such research and make the reader reflect on his/her own teaching experiences in CLIL.

A crucial question for Chinese as a Second Language research is how to help elevate Chinese language teaching methodology to the level of other world language methodologies such as English, Spanish and German. This work goes in two directs. One explores how to apply research results achieved in Chinese linguistics to Chinese language teaching and the other is engaged in creating a strong applied linguistics research field that supports Chinese language teaching. CASLAR scholars are mainly involved in the latter one. This book is a representative sample of their research endeavors.

This edited volume emphasizes the critical role of macro, meso and micro factors in development of multilingual and multicultural environment for learning and teaching. The collection advocates for inclusive education, safe spaces for both teachers and students, teachers and students’ agency, educators’ reflection, and continuous professional development. It promotes the idea of multilingualism as a learning resource by overcoming a monolingual bias and language ideologies and by taking learners’ individual differences, social, economic and political factors into consideration. The originality of this collection is in its diversity spanning linguistic, sociocultural, and pedagogical dimensions.

This edited volume is a collection of studies guided by theoretical and practical interdisciplinary approaches to family and school involvement in multilingual education and heritage language development featuring contributors with expertise in applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, language policy and education. The authors of this volume discuss multilingualism and multiculturalism in various geographical areas, settings, and levels of education, from a theoretical and practical point of view. They present a wide variety of theoretical perspectives, teachers, and students’ views as well as other stakeholders such as policy makers, authorities and parents on family and school involvement in multilingual education and heritage language development.