The spread of English as a global language has sparked debate over how language should be taught and learned and the optimal connection between traditional and Global Englishes (GE) approaches to teaching English as a second/foreign language. According to the GE approach, teaching and learning English might focus more on different contexts than…

The paper foregrounds analysis of the significance of English in individual and collective life in relation to a myriad of feelings that religious and ethnic minorities experience in South and Central Asia within their multilingual ecology. The data reveal an entangling of varied yet coexisting emotions on the part of these minorities in…

Over the past few decades, many Southeast Asian governments have promoted English language education (hereafter ELE) as a linguistic pathway for developing human capital and improving global economic competitiveness of their nations. However, Kirkpatrick (2017. Language education policy among the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).…

The ASEAN region is home to great ethnic, cultural, political and economic diversity and linguistically, represents a region where both Outer and Expanding Circle varieties of English are spoken. English is designated as the sole working language of the ASEAN region but in reality, it has a different status and performs very different roles in…

Migration has become a vital element of the Bangladeshi economy, which has led to an increasing focus on providing Bangladeshis with the skills needed on the international labour market. English is often cited as one of these skills, and previous research has shown that a primary reason why Bangladeshis wish to learn English is due to its…

In this article, the reviewers, Lee-Tat Chow and Peidong Yang compare and contrast "Desiring TESOL and international education," by Raqib Chowdhury and Phan Le-Ha, London, Multilingual Matters, 2014, 288 pp., £29.95 (paperback) ISBN 978-1-783-09147-8 with "Transnational education crossing 'Asia' and 'the West'," by Phan LeHa,…

This research investigates the ideological character of the English language in East Asia. It focuses on the prevailing beliefs, values and propositions relating to English as a global language and the spread of English in the non-English East Asian countries, namely China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. By analyzing how English is presented in…

The purpose of this study is to measure the comprehensibility of the Expanding Circle nations' citizens, namely Burmese, Cambodians, Indonesians, Laotians, Thais and Vietnamese towards the Outer Circle Englishes, namely Bruneian English, Malaysian English. Philippine English and Singaporean English. Ten universities in the Expanding Circle that…

The concept of English as a lingua franca (ELF) has recently caused a great deal of controversy, much of it based on a misunderstanding of ELF. In this presentation, I shall first provide a brief history of lingua francas and then compare and contrast two major Asian lingua francas--Bahasa Indonesia and Putonghua--in order to show how different…

Much research on world Englishes (WE) since the 1980s has yet to impact significantly upon recent applied linguistics work in the areas of instruction, curriculum, testing and policy. Much of the received wisdom has been informed by the paradigm established by the earlier study of International English (IE) and its attendant foci in teaching…

This volume brings together research carried out in a variety of geographic and linguistic contexts including Africa, Asia, Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, Europe and the United States and explores efforts to incorporate linguistic diversity into education and to "harness" this diversity for learners' benefit. It challenges the largely…

The most outstanding characteristic of language in education policy for South Asia (SA) is its multilingualism. All through recorded history the seven countries that constitute SA have been multilingual. For at least the first two decades of their existence as sovereign states the large nation states of SA failed to take into account this…

The 12 issues of the second language teaching and research journal, spanning 1988-1993 contain articles on a variety of language teaching and learning issues. A substantial proportion concern English-as-a-Second-Language instruction, both general and academic, in a number of Southeast Asian cultural contexts. Regional variations of English are…