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 African languages to national official status alongside English and Afrikaans, yet with the freedom of movement accompanying the dismantling of apartheid, large numbers of African language‐speaking parents seek to place their children in English‐medium instructional contexts. Given the push for English and simultaneous official valuing of multilingualism in all three cases, we briefly consider illustrative classroom examples and argue that multilingual classroom practices can be a resource through which children access Standard English while also cultivating their own local languages.
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