Language awareness and multilingualism

The volume includes a special emphasis on multilingualism and language awareness. In addition to a section on bi/multilingualism which discusses the effect of bilingualism, multilingualism and language awareness in multilingual educational contexts, most of the reviews in the volume are on second/foreign language learning and bi/multilingualism. This reflects the situation of many schools nowadays all over the world. In fact, learning a second or additional language is very common in school curricula and the school language is the second or additional language for many children who speak a minority language in the community or are immigrants.

There are 29 reviews altogether, ranging from overviews of theoretical trends and empirical studies about knowledge about language to more specific projects to develop this knowledge. The contributors come from 17 different countries from all over the world and work with different languages. In spite of this diversity, all the reviews discuss in a direct or indirect way the development of knowledge about language in education. They demonstrate that language awareness is certainly necessary for all schoolchildren at all levels. The first section, ‘Knowledge about Language