Over the past two decades, the Chinese language has emerged as a global language. Gulf Cooperation Council countries, such as Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, have integrated Chinese language into their educational systems and established Confucius Institutes to promote Chinese language and culture. In Qatar, interest in…

In the field of educational sociolinguistics there is a body of literature with a focus on children in complementary schooling. While timely, such work often does not often pay much attention to the parents who frequent the school setting, preferring to focus on the interactions between children. This paper addresses this absence by reporting on a…

As part of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a series of large-scale projects have been launched in the Arab Gulf due to its geopolitically strategic position. We examine the influence of Chinese as a third player, in addition to Arabic and English, in a UAE university educationscape together with Emirati students' attitudes towards its…

In this polylog to the special issue on "The rise of Chinese language education policies in the oil-rich Arabian Gulf: New players, discourses and linguistic markets," three researchers with different personal and professional connections to the three languages 'at play' in the region -- English, Chinese, and Arabic -- offer their…

As China is building closer economic and geopolitical relations with oil-rich Arabian Gulf Cooperation Council countries, enthusiasm for learning and teaching Chinese is surging in the region. In Kuwait, whereas Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) education is emerging, research into this topical domain remains scarce, particularly on issues such…

Due to modernisation and Englishisation in Bahrain, noticeably different types of bilingual and bicultural experiences exist, especially among the youth. Recently, the rise of Chinese education policies in the region raises the question of how it might alter the local linguistic market and the forms of capital within it. Applying a…

Studies that examine the rise of CFL policy in Saudi HE institutions are still rare. Through the "language comprehensive competitiveness framework" (LCCF) for the Chinese language? Consisting of policy, economic, cultural, and population competitiveness (Xu, J. 2007. [Chinese characters omitted]. [Language planning and language…

This paper explores the intersection of neoliberal ideologies and language policy in the context of Chinese language education in Oman's higher education system. Drawing on critical discourse analysis and theoretical frameworks of neoliberalism, the study investigates the introduction of Chinese language programmes within Omani universities, with…

This article offers a decolonial reading of professional development for English-medium instruction (EMI). The article zooms into the context of Taiwan, where the promotion of EMI has intensified since the 2030 Bilingual Policy was introduced. It is unclear, however, what constitutes EMI professional development, and to what extent the…