Australia's language-in-education policy documents have consistently included references to the place of "culture" in language teaching. This paper seeks to examine how the major national policies conceptualise culture and interculturality in relationship to languages education. For each policy, this study will analyse the language…

This paper explores the policy turn of the "learning society", and how the academic world is responding to new social and political demands. It highlights some of the criticisms levelled at the learning society, as well as the voices of support. The paper also showcases the European Language Portfolio and the Transferable Skills project…

Europe can become "united in diversity" only by helping its citizens internalise experientially their composite cultural identity as Europeans. Merely conceptual "understanding" of the other cultures is insufficient to promote genuine mutual respect and real opportunities for synergy across frontiers. An example is given of how…

This paper analyses Malaysia's English language policies, especially since the mid 1990s, in the light of more recent claims for a united Malaysian nation (under the banner of "bangsa Malaysia") and in the context of English language and its potential for Malaysia to forge more of an externalised identity. It examines the impact of…

In Claire Kramsch's (2004) response to work by Mary Louise Pratt (2002) on multilingualism, identity and language in the U.S., she proposed that the four points made by Pratt be extended to the following: (1) Monolingualism is a handicap, but so is the assumption that one language = one culture = adherence to one cultural community; (2) Heritage…

This paper proposes a range of improvements to international science communication. It pictures the contemporary language situation in international scientific communication as well as its recent history with the rise of English as its most notable feature and offers explanations for this development. It discusses in which sciences languages other…

This paper discusses pupil choice in relation to foreign language (FL) planning as an instance of micro-language planning. Borrowing from established language planning theory (Haugen, 1983; Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997), FL planning is conceptualised and defined here as the consideration of those aspects of language planning that reflect social,…

Portfolios have attracted considerable interest among ESL writing and assessment specialists since the 1980s. Whether they have fulfilled the promise their proponents envision is a question still under investigation. This paper describes two case studies which looked at student experiences with portfolios in two ESL writing courses where the…

In this article, I argue for an understanding of EAP to be mobilised more around language, its materiality, especially in written form, and the intellectual challenge of learning it. Concomitantly, I argue against the increasing technicisation of language, as it is embodied in the regulatory framework of institutions and its emaciation as an…

This study investigated whether significant differences exist between first and second language readers in their metacognitive awareness and perceived use of specific strategies when reading for academic purposes in English. Three hundred and fifty college students (141 US and 209 Moroccan) completed an instrument designed to measure their…

This paper revisits the question of why pragmatics should be taught in the foreign language classroom and demonstrates how this can be achieved effectively with materials informed by conversation analysis (CA). Since findings in CA describe systematic action sequences underlying verbal activities that display cross-cultural variation, they capture…

This paper reviews the empirical studies of washback from external exams and tests that have been carried out in the field of English language teaching. It aims to do so from the point of view of the teacher so as to provide teachers with a clearer idea of the roles they can play and the decisions they can make concerning washback. The paper…

This paper reports similarities and differences in teachers' corrective feedback and learners' uptake across instructional settings. Four communicative classroom settings--French Immersion, Canada ESL, New Zealand ESL and Korean EFL--were examined using Lyster and Ranta's taxonomy of teachers' corrective feedback moves and learner uptake. The…

The English verb "be" has always been a perceived problem for Chinese ESL learners, however, few studies have been conducted with a specific focus on the interlanguage "be" of Chinese ESL learners. This paper examines the variable use of the English verb "be" of 270 Hong Kong primary school children for developmental…

The purpose of this article is to evaluate the applicability of task-based language teaching (TBLT) to state secondary foreign language classes. After discussion of method in general, TBLT is defined and its particularities described. Tasks are assessed as the basis for syllabus and then as the basis for method. In both cases, the proposals are…