Language plays a critical role in an individual's adapting to a community and developing a sense of friendship and belonging. In its absence, Humans suffer from a lack of trust in each other since they cannot speak in the same language. If they fail to communicate, this incapability leads to problems. Additionally, individual and common social…

The study is focused on the analysis of business English bachelor's study programs provided by Czech universities, and the self-perceived strengths and weaknesses of the program graduates in practice and their employer's requirements and evaluations. A qualitative-quantitative analysis of the data was done using three research methods: content…

In the current neoliberal era, work is increasingly connected to transnational relations that involve people crossing linguistic and national borders. Based on a multi-sited ethnography, this article explores a transnational social movement called Emmaus where voluntary work, geographical mobility, and language learning intersect. I analyse the…

This study discusses agency in language policy and planning (LPP) development from the perspective of Brazilian national language policies reflected in the local LPP programme/initiative of a public university in the Southeast region of the country. With that goal, national and local (institutional) documents are analysed and contrasted with the…

The claim to strive for greater internationalisation in the fields of academic education not only corresponds to the pressures of an increasingly globalised world but is also a response to the ever-growing challenges of cultural diversity that exist within one's own country. For students, however, the geographical space relevant to their education…

The concept of intercultural communication has become a focus in English language teaching (ELT) against the backdrop of globalization, as English is now used as a lingua franca (ELF) among people with different first languages (L1s). However, the current linguistic landscape of ELF does not reflect well in ELT practices in which native speakerism…

This paper reports on a semester-long study that explored the experience of a group of local and international students from multiple disciplines, and their teachers, in a core Intercultural Communication undergraduate course of 550 students in which there is an orientation to learning, teaching and assessment that seeks to develop students'…

Through the analytical lens of activity theory (Leontiev, 1978, Lantolf & Thorne, 2006), the present study investigates the uptake of affordances for language learning by young (ages 7-11) Danish children (N = 15) in their engagement with English language media in the digital wild. Drawing on ethnographic interviews (Spradley, 1979), during…

Mandarin Chinese is the fastest growing foreign language by number of students in the world [Ding and Saunders 2006. "Talking up China: An Analysis of China's Rising Cultural Power and Global Promotion of the Chinese Language." "East Asia" 23 (2): 3-33], but little is known about how it is taking hold in compulsory education in…

"Crossing borders" features prominently as a theme in study abroad, not only in terms of students' physical border crossings but also in their intercultural interactions with second language (L2) speakers whose background (linguistic and otherwise) they may perceive as markedly different from their own. Researchers have had a…

Most of the projects aimed at making migrants more successful in the context of higher education in Germany focus on programmes that introduce the rules and expectations of the university to students and try to change their habitus. This article discusses a multilingualism project conducted in a German university that strives to go beyond this…

Purpose: This sociolinguistic paper discusses the relationship between language and belonging from the perspective of Arabic-English speaking bilinguals. It explores what knowledge of language(s) means for the minority language speaker and investigates the challenges, consequences and opportunities multilingualism poses for its speakers in a…

The role of world languages in the internationalization of college campuses in the United States (U.S.) has become a recurring theme of discussions in academic, government, and private sectors. Topics have ranged from the lack of a common definition of internationalization to a review of college curricula. Klee (2009) and Bettencourt (2011) have…

The aim of this paper is to discuss intercultural competence (IC) from a languacognitive perspective, whose main assumption is the interface between language, cognition and culture manifested in meaning construction. The article first emphasizes the centrality of language in the process of meaning construction. As a result, in the following…

The rapid increase in English medium instruction (EMI) in higher education has resulted in the need for a greater evidence base documenting EMI in practice spanning a range of settings. Studies of EMI focusing on linguistic issues are beginning to emerge but there are few comparative studies looking at multiple sites, levels and stakeholders. In…