In contexts where schooling is delivered through a language of instruction (LoI) that is unfamiliar to learners, it has repeatedly been observed that students are reluctant to speak, passive, or even silent. This is commonly attributed to lack of understanding of the language in use in the classroom. Although this is, undoubtedly, an important…

The marketization of education in countries like the UK may be seen as part and parcel of the rise of neoliberalism as the dominant shaper of policy and practice in many societies from the late twentieth century onwards. This paper explores how marketization has impacted on two initial teacher preparation programmes and focuses on the Cambridge…

This article reviews part of the progress of the first year of the Isan Culture Maintenance and Revitalisation Programme (ICMRP), a four-year 540,000 euro series of pilot studies co-funded by the European Union and based in Thailand. The ICMRP is based in four semi-autonomous municipalities in Khon Kaen Province, viz. Ban Phai, Chum Phae, Khon…

This paper reports a study of how context influences a content-based language teaching (CBLT) project in China, an approach which is fairly new in the country, in its implementation in three middle schools. It identifies three aspects of the context which have a crucial effect on classroom practice. These are the perceptions of the project and its…