A chapter by this site’s founders set me off on a path to doing a Ph.D. and made me re-evaluate my linguistic practises and my position as an English teacher…
Owen MinnsMay 1, 2024
Editor's note: We are delighted to bring to our readers today another outstanding experience of bilingual creativity, the poem Malay Sketches by Sydney author Aisyah Shah Idil, a runner up of the…
Aisyah Shah IdilOctober 21, 2015
Kimie Takahashi (2013) Language learning, gender and desire: Japanese women on the move. Multilingual Matters. It’s Valentine’s Day today. Valentine’s Day is a truly global event inextricably linking the emotional…
Ingrid PillerFebruary 14, 2013
Gay men, English and desire in Bangkok I have recently begun working on my MA thesis on sexuality and second language learning at the Graduate School of English, Assumption University…
williamJune 4, 2012
Pretty much everyone I know wants to learn English or improve their English – with the exception of those who consider themselves native speakers, obviously. What is more, everyone I…
Ingrid PillerAugust 16, 2011
Having lived and taught English in Japan for more than fifteen years, until last night I’d thought I’d seen it all. That was until I stumbled across the もし彼氏が外国人だったら英会話 (What…
Lachlan JacksonAugust 11, 2011
Much of my research over the past decade has involved talking to migrants to Australia and overseas students about their experiences of language learning and settlement. In these conversations, I…
Ingrid PillerMay 24, 2011
Lotus Pond (part of Shinobazu Pond) in Ueno Park “There are so many stupid Japanese women around, huh? Many Westerners are coming to our country and the stupid women love…
Kimie Takahashi 高橋君江October 11, 2010
The latest issue of Cross-Cultural Studies (published by the Center for Cross Cultural Studies, Kyung Hee University, Korea) includes an article about the dark side of TESOL authored by Ingrid Piller,…
Kimie Takahashi 高橋君江September 13, 2010
About ten years ago an overseas student from South Korea who was about to fail a unit I was teaching left a suicide note under my office door. She described…
Ingrid PillerMarch 16, 2010
“Child pornography and English language learning”?! Could there be a connection?! Difficult to believe but true - I’m referring to a best selling English phrase book for Japanese high school…
Kimie Takahashi 高橋君江March 8, 2010
If you could choose to learn a foreign language, which one would it be? And why? Such choices are usually constrained by what is on offer. However, someone must choose…
Ingrid PillerDecember 14, 2009
For the last so many years I have been feeling sorry for Tourism Australia. Since their Paul Hogan (our one and only Crocodile Dundee) mega hit tourism campaign in the…
Kimie Takahashi 高橋君江November 5, 2009
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