Multilingual language policy and school linguistic practice: globalization and English‐language teaching in India, Singapore and South Africa

TLDR: This article explored the paradoxical role of and demand for English as a tool of decolonization for multilingual populations seeking equitable access to a globalizing economy, and depicted tensions between multilingualism and English across three national cases, at both policy and classroom level.

Abstract: This paper explores tensions in translating multilingual language policy to classroom linguistic practice, and especially the paradoxical role of and demand for English as a tool of decolonization for multilingual populations seeking equitable access to a globalizing economy. We take an ecological and sociolinguistic approach, depicting tensions between multilingualism and English across three national cases, at both policy and classroom level. Despite India's egalitarian Three Language Formula (TLF) of 1968, many Indian children are being educated in a language which is not their mother tongue. Singapore's bilingual education policy with English medium of instruction and mother tongues taught as second languages nevertheless leaves the linguistic capital of multilingual children who speak a pidginized variety of English called ‘Singlish’ out of the equation, since the school medium is standard English. South Africa's Constitution of 1993 embraces multilingualism as a national resource, raising nine major...