139 Language, Education and Development: Implications of Language Choice for Learning Barbara Trudell, Catherine Young and Susan Nyaga In S McGrath and Qing Gu (eds.), Routledge Handbook of International Education and Development. Routledge, 2015. Pp. 133-149. Language and education: choices and implications Language of instruction is an increasingly visible issue in international education today. This is especially true for primary education systems in multi-language national environments of the global South, where educational outcomes (and reading competencies in particular) are under closer scrutiny from international funding and program implementation bodies than they have been in the past. i Although many factors affect educational outcomes (including teacher competency, student well-being, the policy environment, and financial and infrastructural support), fluency in the language of instruction stands out as a significant predictor of learner success in both reading competencies and curriculum content (Gove and Cvelich 2011: 16; Alidou et al. 2006). In the area of adult learning for development, language of instruction is less in the spotlight – as indeed, adult education itself is far from the center of international and national concerns about learning. Nevertheless, the role of local language in effective development is central (Djité 2008; Chumbow 2005). Good communication, clear understanding of new content and the ability to think critically about one’s world are central to adult learning for development – and these features of good learning are only found when the medium of communication is one that the learner understands well. Language choice in educational contexts also carries significant political and cultural meaning. National policy regarding language and education, and the implementation of that policy at various levels of society, reflect deeply held, and frequently contested, identity issues (Shohamy 2006; Alidou 2003; Kone 2010). This chapter addresses three central aspects of language choice in education: the policy aspect, the cognitive and academic aspect, and the sociocultural aspect. The perspective of the chapter is generally weighted towards the social, linguistic and educational realities of nations in the global South, because the populations of these nations are the most multilingual and also the least well served in terms of education provision. Language policy Language policy is the means by which decision makers express their preferred language behaviours, particularly with reference to institutional uses of language. National language policy, though it is meant to apply to institutional communicative interactions generally, is seen most clearly where applied to the formal education system. In this context, language policy mandates the language(s) to be used for instruction and testing. It also determines which languages will be taught in schools, when and for how long they will be taught, by whom and how they should be taught. In the educational context, language policies are initiated primarily from above through formal government documents and are meant to be supported and implemented by teachers, materials, curricula and examinations (Shohamy 2006: 76).