In 2006, Graddol predicted that numbers of "English as a foreign language" learners would begin to decline through the second decade of this century, as global English achieves basic skill status for children entering education in more societies across the world. As he further noted, having skills in additional languages may thus offer a…

Language program evaluation is a pragmatic mode of inquiry that illuminates the complex nature of language-related interventions of various kinds, the factors that foster or constrain them, and the consequences that ensue. Program evaluation enables a variety of evidence-based decisions and actions, from designing programs and implementing…

Although it has existed for many decades in the national curriculum of U.S. higher education, the study of languages for business purposes has lacked a more serviceable and academically communal name--a more rigorous toponymic identity--by which to identify itself as a theory-based field of scholarship. The intention here is to propose for…

Argues, from a sociolinguistic perspective, that second language (L2) research could usefully engage with some of the debates concerning postmodernity. Suggests that globalization presents an important range of empirical phenomena requiring serious L2 study. Indicates the kinds of linguistic assumptions that ideas about postmodernity draw into…

Foreign Language across the Curriculum (FLAC), a practice that modifies non-FL liberal arts courses to include an FL reading component, is described as implemented at two private colleges. It is concluded that FLAC offers only a token FL benefit to most students. (33 references) (LB)