Addressing language of instruction issues in education: recommendations for documenting progress

This paper offers evidence-based recommendations for documenting international progress towards addressing language issues in education. The focus is on adapting the school language(s) of instruction to the home language(s) of learners. The paper begins by defining terms like L1 and explaining the concepts underlying multilingual education (MLE). Next there is a discussion of how to capture relevant linguistic and educational information from policy documents and linguistic sources, with examples from low-income countries. This is followed by a set of questions that can and should be asked of any program to evaluate progress in addressing instructional language issues, focusing on the approach/methodology, teacher languages and skills, learner assessment, and program management, monitoring and evaluation. The paper concludes with some possible global indicators and suggestions for further research.