The enormously complex and sometimes controversial project to unify the traditional literary Braille code used in English-speaking countries with the technical and mathematical codes authorized by the Braille Authority of North America (BANA) and the Braille Authority of the United Kingdom (BAUK) proposes to change English Grade Two Braille on a…

Words that are rarely used in spoken English should be expelled or excommunicated from the language. The reasons behind banishing one such word "whom", an English relative pronoun that is used as the object of a preposition or of a verb, and replacing it with "who" are discussed.

Investigates the development of foreign language education policies in Palestine at a time when the establishment of a Palestinian state has become a real option, and when, following the Oslo agreements, the Palestinians have become responsible for Palestinian education. (Author/VWL)

The goal of this brief, prepared jointly by the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators (NHCSL) and the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute (TRPI), is to bring to policy saliency--at the national, state, and local levels--to the educational crisis caused by the under-achievement of Hispanic youth. Specifically, this report addresses two issues of…

Employing critical discourse analysis (CDA), this paper examines the attempt to bridge a Canadian adult second language policy with an employment skills policy. The result is a third policy intended to improve language education and employment skills training for immigrants. The analysis reveals that the knowledge economy and human capital theory…

Since the post-Soviet context is not particularly well known to the majority of readers, the author uses this introduction to provide a general background against which developments in particular post-Soviet countries can be better understood. The author begins by placing these developments in the sociohistoric context of language policies of the…

The impact of English on the Chinese mainland from multidimensional perspectives: historical, educational and political is critically discussed. Historically, English education has witnessed its inception, ups and downs, and the present boom. The recent expansion of English education is functionally and economically oriented at both individual and…

The issue of dialect and education and, in particular, the issue of which code to use as the medium of instruction has generated much heated debate in bidialectal societies. This debate is reflected in the literature on language policy in education which is divided into three main areas: (i) the use of the standard variety as medium of…

My main contention in this article is that the nation-state paradigm for policies targeted at effecting development in sub-Saharan Africa is undermined by arbitrary colonial boundaries and porous borders and the challenges of transnationalism as part of the globalization phenomenon in late modernity. The nation-state paradigm is also the framework…

The education system in general and ELT in particular are rigidly controlled in the Sultanate of Oman, which gives teachers little room to supplement the mandated textbook. This article, hence, discusses ideologies about the "flexible" ELT syllabus and the role of the teacher's professionalism in the syllabus implementation process. One…

This paper explores the implementation of China's English language policy for primary schools in the 2004-5 school year through case studies of four public schools of different types. Data were collected through document reviews, interviews, and observations. The investigation of the four schools illustrates that during 2004-5 the policy has not…

The new framework no longer holds valid the idea that innovations do not occur in phonology except as a by-product of standardization. New analyses are presented for language standardization. That languages are equally systematic but not equal in function is one point made. (SCC)

Reports on the results of an international language planning project. (PM)

Discusses the effects of the French government's ministerial act of January 12, 1973 concerning the enrichment of French vocabulary in the national and regional press. (Text is in French.) (PMP)

The results of a survey on the nature of social attitudes toward language learning are presented. A review of previous surveys indicates strong community support for language learning, but those surveys did not contain information specific enough to explain why language enrollments are declining in Australia. For the present survey, three hundred…