Criticism of specific-purpose language (LSP) tests is often directed at their limited ability to represent fully the demands of the target language use situation. Such criticisms extend to the criteria used to assess test performance, which may fail to capture what matters to participants in the domain of interest. This paper reports on the…

Higher education administrators are often faced with difficult choices in allocating limited resources for the creation of new programs. The purpose of this article is to explore the suitability of a new product, an integrated business Spanish major, by applying stakeholder marketing. In so doing, it provides a framework for the application of…

According to a recent research carried out by Aruba Networks (2014) in the US, the UK, France, Spain, Germany, Sweden, South Africa, Saudi Arabia and UAE, 86% of all respondents have two or more devices that can connect to the internet, and nearly two thirds (64%) already own three or more mobile devices with this feature; another 39% own four or…

Introduction: Nowadays, language and intercultural competences have become core employability skills in many fields, supporting the development of other skills which emphasizes the necessity for specific pedagogic approaches in developing online learning materials and courses that would develop learners' language competence and other relevant 21st…

This article explores a number of key issues that emerged during the panel discussion that followed the General Language Proficiency Symposium at the Language Testing Forum (LTF) 2010, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the LTF. The key issues that emerged during the discussion should be of interest to a wider audience, as they express current…

The need for foreign language education in the US has increased in recent years, and teaching methods based on traditional textbooks are unlikely to meet the real-world needs of current learners. As a response, interest in Language for Specific Purposes programs has grown and so has Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) methodology. This article…

The study of French for Specific Purposes (FSP) is a topical subject in this era of globalization. Kenya requires people who can communicate in French in the various specialized areas. It has become crucial in Kenya to respond to the French language needs of students learning tourism and hospitality among other domains which have already shown an…

In an effort to expand the teaching of medical Spanish to medical students, a one-week pilot course was developed and implemented at The University of Alabama School of Medicine (UASOM) in January 2010. Objectives included offering a refresher course in Spanish for medical students before third-year clerkships and providing a model for medical…

Action learning is often used as an element of leadership development programmes. The intention is to support classroom learning with an experiential thread which runs throughout the life of the programme. Action Learning Associates (ALA) has been working with an international organisation for three years to deliver the global "First Line…

This article investigates a project that used student-centered teaching and languages for specific purposes to increase university students' motivation to study Spanish and willingness to communicate. After reflecting on their personal goals and interests, students were required to choose a purpose or context in which they might use Spanish in…

The model of Mother Tongue Tuition (MTT) which has developed in Sweden since the 1970's offers speakers of languages other than Swedish the opportunity to request tuition in their mother tongue, from kindergarten through to year 12. It is unique among the major immigrant-receiving countries of the world yet little is known about MTT and its…

It is the reality of Korean language education that the development of teaching materials for Korean language for academic purposes are not so brisk, compared to that of the materials for general purpose, as the education of Korean language as a foreign language has just begun to proceed. The focuses of this study are to survey the brief history…

The demand for Spanish for specific purposes (SSP) university courses in the United States has prompted widespread curricular change in language departments over the last two decades (Klee, 2015; Sánchez-López, 2013). However, many instructors lack the tools and training needed to design SSP curricula that meet learners' communicative needs in…

This paper illustrates how a freely available online corpus has been exploited in a module on teaching business letters covering the following four speech acts (functions) commonly found in business letters: invitations, requests, complaints and refusals. It is proposed that different strategies are required for teaching potentially…

Outwardly the rhetorical organisation of sections of research reports in different disciplines can appear similar. Close examination, however, may reveal subtle differences. Numerous studies have drawn on the genre-based approach developed by Swales (1990, 2004) to investigate the schematic structure of sections of articles in a range of…