"Contributors to this volume came together to discuss the problems and promise of African multilingualism at a joint meeting of the Annual Conference on African Linguistics and the Georgetown University Roundtable on Languages and Linguistics in Washington, D.C., in March 2013. As part of that joint conference, a workshop on language and education in Africa was organized by Carolyn Adger of the Center for Applied Linguistics. That workshop became the inspiration for this volume."--Introduction.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 191-192) and index.

Layers of language : some bad news and some good news on multilingualism, language policy, and education in Africa / Elizabeth C. Zsiga, One Tlale Boyer, and Ruth Kramer -- Early reading success in Africa : the language factor / Barbara Trudell and Carolyn Temple Adger -- Classroom discourse in bilingual and multilingual Kenyan primary schools / Lydiah Kananu Kiramba -- Investigating teacher effects in mother-tongue-based multilingual education programs / Stephen L. Walter -- A complementary education program in Ghana / Kingsley Arkorful -- Request strategies as used by Tunisian EFL learners / Imen Aribi -- Language contact and language attitudes in two Dagara-speaking border communities in Burkina Faso and Ghana / Richard Beyogle -- Language and education policy in Botswana : the case of Sebirwa / One Tlale Boyer and Elizabeth C. Zsiga -- Ethnic language shift in Nao / Samson Seid -- The role of language and culture for ethnic identity maintenance : the case of the Gujarati community in South Africa / Sheena Shah -- "The palm oil with which words are eaten" : proverbs from endangered Cameroonian indigenous languages / Eyvoi Njwe -- The linguistic "glocal" in urban popular music in Nigeria / Tolulope Odebunmi -- Language use in advertisements as a reflection of speakers' language habits / Leonard Muaka -- The persuasive nature of metaphors in Kenya's political discourse / Leonard Muaka -- African languages in the media : visualizations of pathologized polyglossia / Anjali Pandey.