Linguistic diversity in Sydney (Source: Sydney Morning Herald) The media in Anglophone countries regularly engage in a bit of a bragfest about the linguistic diversity of their cities. In Sydney,…
Ingrid PillerAugust 20, 2014
German International School Sydney It is one of the great narratives of our time that the market will fix everything. In education this means that parental choice is assumed to…
Ingrid PillerJuly 31, 2014
Chinese university students in a debate, 2011 (Photo by Nikki Feng) Public speaking can constitute an excellent language learning tool, as I discovered through participating in public speaking activities in…
Alexandra GreyApril 14, 2014
The National Institute of the English Language in Tehran has used the slogan "A new language is a new life" for more than 50 years I’m preparing my lecture on…
Ingrid PillerJanuary 13, 2014
Burmese newspaper in a Bangkok restaurant “When Thai people ask me where I’m from, I tell them, “Oh I’m from the Philippines or Singapore. Then, I don’t get that look!”…
Kimie Takahashi 高橋君江October 23, 2013
An East Timorese girl speaking Bunak, Tetum, Fataluku and Portuguese (Source: Wikipedia) A response to Alexandra Grey, "We do aid, not English" In my experience English is often promoted by…
Kerry Taylor-LeechOctober 18, 2013
Should ‘helping with English’ be part of the brief of humanitarian aid workers? (Source: helpage.org) Over a few years of involvement in the aid sector in Asia, I became aware…
Alexandra GreyOctober 17, 2013
Mariko Watanabe and Ingrid Piller celebrate their reunion at Yaccomaricard in Chit Lom This post is also available in pdf-format. Click here. In early July, YM Fashion’s CEO Mariko Watanabe…
Kimie Takahashi 高橋君江October 11, 2013
Bilingual Swedish-Finnish monument in Helsinki commenmorating globally beloved children's author Tove Jansson, a Swedish-speaking Finn (Source: vanderkrogt.net) 50,000 people have signed a petition against mandatory Swedish classes in Finnish schools,…
Dave SayersAugust 26, 2013
Business card promoting private English tuition In Iran, as in many other countries around the globe, the craze for learning English has been on the rise. This tendency is attributed…
Vahid ParvareshAugust 22, 2013
English-Only Australia? (Source: blogs.crikey.com.au) In recent Australian political conversation, there is an increasingly bipartisan recognition of the value of cultural and linguistic diversity. So it’s fair to ask, what is…
Hanna TorshJuly 28, 2013
Migrant children studying in a Brazilian school in Japan (Source: Japan Times) A recent study of the educational pathways of the children of Brazilian migrants in Japan offers a most…
Ingrid PillerMay 28, 2013
Who profits from an early start in English language learning? 不要讓你的孩子輸在起跑點上 (Don’t let your children lose out at the starting point.) is one of the most popular slogans whenever English…
Jackie ChangMay 6, 2013
The Omidvar brothers on the road: amazing feats of discovery and language learning? In his most recent round of interviews with the magazine Særzæmin-e Mæn (“My Country”), Issa Omidvar, one…
Vahid ParvareshApril 29, 2013
TADIT - Teachers Against Discrimination in Taiwan Imagine yourself on the shores of your ancestral homeland, where your parents and grandparents grew up, where the stories you heard as a…
Andrew BuntingApril 2, 2013
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