In the past decade, major attention has been given to the power of tests and to the pivotal roles tests play in societies in shaping the definitions of language, affecting learning and teaching, and maintaining and creating social class. Accordingly, the quality of tests is not judged merely by their psychometric traits but also in relation to…

The paper explores how we think of English and "English Studies" in present-day Europe. It questions the apparent neutrality of the term lingua franca by suggesting a more differentiated set of terms. It relates the current consolidation and expansion of English to processes of global Americanisation and Europeanisation. The European…

This article examines the attitudes of the colonial and metropolitan governments towards the promotion of English-language education on Hong Kong Island between 1842 and 1860. The study, which draws on a range of unpublished primary sources, was conducted in response to Whitehead's recent call for detailed case studies of colonial education…

The purpose of this paper is to describe the framework for implementing multilingual language education (MLE) countrywide in Nepal. I outline key tenets of MLE, explain the rationale for implementing it in the Nepali context, and describe the MLE framework that formed the basis of trainer workshops. The framework is divided into 7 topics: 4 of…

The evolution of Rwanda's language policies since 1996 has played and continues to play a critical role in social reconstruction following war and genocide. Rwanda's new English language policy aims to drop French and install English as the only language of instruction. The policy-makers frame the change as a major factor in the success of social…

Since 1995 I have been engaged in consultancies and since 2001 in research dealing with the language of instruction policies in Africa. To what extent are the policies being implemented? What is the role of research and consultancy when it comes to language policy? What happens when researchers or consultants come up with recommendations which do…

Looked at from a certain distance, the "Languages Review" (Dearing & King, 2007) was seen by some in the foreign language (FL) education community, when it first came out, as a major disappointment because the authors had decided not to opt for the one measure that would reverse the falling numbers of students studying a foreign…

The common market of the South is a new linguistic and cultural area. The resurgence of innermost identities within member states proves that Mercosur identity can neither be universal nor specific. The outcome of this quest for identity will depend on the ability to carefully handle an area of cultural diversity and a place of common allegiance…

The many failures of large-scale top-down educational reforms are well documented in the reform literature. These failures are most evident when they are reviewed from the advantageous perspective of hindsight. What are less well documented are the extraordinarily interesting, centrally driven educational changes that have had important and…

What makes people, in shifting power positions of a post-independence period, plan on disusing an already known L2 or learn a new L2? What are the reasons for such shifts and what outcomes can, therefore, be predicted for the future of societal bilingualism surviving alongside ongoing efforts at monolingual unification in a newly independent…

Globalisation processes, often accused of imposing uniformity the world over, also open up opportunities for minorities (including linguistic ones) to exploit a variety of spaces for self-definition and self-expression. The expansion in the use of minority languages in public signage is one consequence of this present phase of reorientation in…

This article discusses exchanges between a number of scholars during the 1990s centering on Min-Zhan Lu's controversial essay "Conflict and Struggle: The Enemies or Preconditions of Basic Writing?" In some ways, "Conflict and Struggle" blazed a trail for later work in "hybrid" or "mixed" forms of academic writing while at the same time igniting…

This paper reviews the arguments for and against the inclusion of support resources in high-stakes assessments of L2 language proficiency. It explores how these arguments have shaped centralised language-in-education planning and policy decisions and looks at what has happened at the local level as a consequence of these decisions. Regardless of…

Appropriate models for understanding the dynamics of language use in society are essential to effective language policy and planning. Particularly in African contexts, such models must speak to the unique features of multilingual environments, and they must account for the differences in prestige and value which occur between languages in these…

Since 1790, the US government has conducted a decennial census of the nation's population and its various ethno-racial subgroups. The official names for these subgroups have direct and significant consequences for the implementation and regulation of public policy at the national, state and local levels of governance. This paper first provides a…