One in eight of all school children in Scotland's largest city does not speak English as a first language, new figures show.
According to the statistics, contained in a review of Glasgow's schools for the past year, there are now approximately 9500 children with English as an Additional Language (EAL), 12.5% of the total school roll - or half the Scottish total.
The high numbers mean the city now employs 140 additional specialist staff to support children with EAL, at a cost of more than £5m.
But as well as previous issues such as calls for extra classroom support and the need for race equality strategies, educationalists in the city have identified a new problem - the link between children who have EAL and levels of attainment.
Research carried out in Glasgow shows that young people with EAL perform less well than their peers in all SQA English examinations, prompting a working group to further explore alternatives such as qualifications for English for speakers of other languages.
The upsurge in children with EAL began around 2000 with the first group of asylum seekers. The number has remained fairly constant since around 2002.
The children use 86 different languages.
In the past four years, approximately 3000 foreign national children have enrolled in schools in Glasgow.
Most of these are the children of migrant workers and while a significant number are from Eastern Europe, they are not exclusively so.
The most recent statistics indicate that they have come from more than 100 countries.
One of the best examples is Shawlands Academy, in Glasgow's south side, where at the last count, there were more than 50 languages being spoken in the playground, including Punjabi, Urdu, Arabic, French and Polish.
There is significant turnover within this group, with some of the children attending school in the city for only a short time.
The council has publicly stated in the past that facilitating EAL children is a bigger priority than reducing class size.
The figures come on the back of recent information from the Scottish Government showing nine languages were spoken for the first time in Scottish classrooms last year including Balochi, Esan, Frisian, Herero, Jula, Kalabari and Mandinka.
The new additions, from as far afield as Iran, Nigeria, the Netherlands, Namibia, Burkina Faso, India and Mali, joined established tongues including Bengali and Cantonese, which help make up the 147 languages spoken in schools.
The most common after English is now Polish.
A Glasgow City Council spokesman said: "There are many young people who are academically gifted but they can struggle to get into university without Higher English.
"It's very difficult for them to pass that exam when they haven't been in the country for very long.
"Therefore, there are potentially young people who are missing out at the moment.
"We already present some pupils for the English for Speakers of Other Languages qualification, but we are hoping to develop a policy which will formalise it and allow us to extend this service.
"The council already employs an extra 140 teachers to support children whose first language isn't English and we firmly believe we are using our resources in the most effective way to achieve improved results and ensure all of Glasgow's children receive the education they deserve."
The Pupils in Scotland 2008 census, published in February, showed that across the country there are now 19,000 pupils identified as having English as an additional language and who are not fluent in English, an increase of 3590 on the previous year.
In addition, there are 4021 pupils who cannot speak English at all - an increase of 426 from 2007.
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