Continua of Multilingualism and Multiliteracy Across English Language Teaching Settings

It has been some 35 years since the publication of the article “Continua of Biliteracy” by Hornberger (1989). In this time much has changed in language education in terms of concepts, theories and practices, partly due to the different educational needs in different parts of the world, and partly due to the influence of ideas that have emerged from research in relevant areas of language studies related to ethnolinguistic diversity. The fundamental issues such as bi/multilingualism and language competence discussed in the Continua have remained as salient now as it was three decades ago. The main aim of this discussion is to relate some of the ideas and arguments in the “Continua of Biliteracy” to a set of contemporary issues and challenges in language education, with particular reference to the teaching of English as an additional language in different world locations.