Since the 1990s, the emphasis on intelligibility as a goal in pronunciation teaching rather than near-native or nativelike competence has been reinforced by the increasing use of English as a lingua franca. The insight of the intelligibility principle has greatly impressed researchers in China's English education, but has "very limited and…

International comparative curriculum research is becoming more important in a globalised world. However, up-to-date comparative studies of international foreign language education policies are still rare. This study compares current modern foreign language curricula in England with that in the state of North-Rhine Westphalia in Germany at Key…

The need to address culture in the language learning process has been emphasized as a means to promote both intercultural awareness and communicative language curricula. In countries such as Turkey, this has been an ongoing concern in the context of English as a foreign language (EFL) education. Thus, attempts have been made to enhance the…

In the high-stakes accountability English educational system, decisions made by government and agencies about curriculum, pedagogy and assessment drive school planning and actions. This paper analyses the drivers for the recent change to French German and Spanish GCSEs and highlights particular areas of the new specification which may damage the…

In China, developing students' overall communicative competence was set as the central goal of the current college English curriculum requirements since 2004. However, this goal has remained largely unfulfilled, particularly with regard to writing competence. This study proposes that the genre-based pedagogy in systemic functional linguistics may…

Background: This study investigates how the criterion-referenced (CR) approach has impacted relationships between goals, classroom practices, and student achievement in English education in Japan from 1994 to the present, a period covering three government-mandated administrations of a national curriculum (Course of Study). No study has…

In this paper, Chinese curricula in the contexts of China and Singapore on primary level are compared and contrasted by both quantitative (Word Segmenter and Text Analyzer) and qualitative methods (in-depth thematic analysis). The research shows challenges for educational administrators, teachers and other professional staff in Chinese education…

This paper examines whether the Swedish steering documents for English-language education are ethnically biased, that is, whether Swedish culture and language or "Swedishness" are used as norms when teaching and assessing students. To examine whether such bias exists, the central curricula and syllabi from 1994 and 2000, as well as local…

Discusses project work, describes what it is, why it should be used, and how its aims are defined. Highlights classroom management during project periods and provides a list of project goals that relate to domains and benchmarks of the English-as-a-Foreign-Language curriculum in Israel. (Author/VWL)