When I first joined an English bridging program as a teacher in Australia, I quickly learnt the unwritten rule: real learning happens in English. Even a stray browser tab showing Chinese text could raise eyebrows. I knew this because a coordinator reminded me that Chinese text should not appear in a classroom computer's browser history. I am Chinese-born and raised, and I felt like an imposter, as if my Chinese-ness was a liability that needed to be carefully managed.

La Alabarda (the halberd symbol of Trieste, Italy) has featured as a sticker on every car I have owned. I expect the symbol, a white lance on a striking red background, would be unfamiliar to most motorists who view it on my back windshield.

A few years ago, a multilingual student shared their experience of school assessment with me during a research project:

As an English language learner, migrant, and long-time TESOL practitioner, I have often found myself navigating the space between what is pedagogically sound and what is socially expected in English language classrooms—particularly in the Chinese context.

I remember the very first time I heard about hedging. It was during my master’s degree in the UK. In one particular class, where around 70% of the students were Chinese, our professor spent nearly 40 minutes trying to teach us how to hedge in our English writing.

The power of multilingualism in education is undeniable. However, while many schools celebrate the rich linguistic diversity that students bring, the reality is that embracing home languages in the classroom is still a challenge.

With the rise of social media, we can now see how people use English in different contexts. Along with this visibility comes a wave of grammarians in Indonesia, giving judgmental critiques on others’ use of English.

When I think about academic English writing, it is not just the topic of my PhD research – it is also a deeply personal journey that has shaped who I am: from a student to a teacher, and now a PhD researcher.

Dr Nashid Nigar & Prof Alex Kostogriz, Monash University Reimagining EAL/D Education: From Standard Norms to Sensory Pedagogies As shown...

As an advocate of bilingual education and a teacher in a bilingual primary school, I have seen many of the benefits and challenges for students, families and teachers alike.

Our world has become very interconnected. There are more speakers of English as an additional language than speakers considered to use

I've always been proud of my Basque roots, though bringing them up often leads to the same reaction: Basque? Where is that from?

Today I was looking at a list of oxymorons. It was a playful list that had been made for English language learning purposes.

I read a Japanese story a few years ago that made me feel very upset. It was about a mother who was carrying a baby on her back. She needed

In Iran, we commonly use the term zaban [literally translated as language/tongue] to refer exclusively to the English language. When someone

As a teacher of Italian and a teacher educator, I have the privilege to work with students from many different cultural and linguistic

Dr. Fatemeh Khonamri University of Mazandaran I used to believe that the best way to teach a reading course in an Iranian context was to...

Recently, I had a blast from the past when my former Iranian English teacher, Mitti, kindly sent me a few of my English writings from about 17 years ago. It was both eye-opening and quite hilarious reading a very young me trying to express myself in English. First of all, let me tell you about Mitti. She had this magical quality where she encouraged us to speak English in class but never gave us the side-eye if we threw in a Persian word here and there. Looking at the youthfu

Differentiation is key to meeting teaching and learning objectives at school. Some students need extra help to reach required achievement standards, others are exceeding expectations and need to be extended, and still others need a different way of thinking about achievement standards altogether. English-as-an–additional-language (EAL) students in Australia are generally labelled as EAL because they are considered to need some kind of additional language support. It can be di

Born and raised in Vietnam, I learned and later taught English as a foreign language. My monolingual background significantly shaped my perspective, and I was particularly influenced by two key experiences during my learning and teaching journey. The first pivotal experience was being selected to attend a provincial high school where students were trained to become leaders in the province. At the welcoming ceremony, the head teacher, a renowned Russian language instructor, ad