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This chapter briefly explores selected English and general education policy documents, curricula, and textbooks within the context of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) from a Critical Discourse Analysis perspective and examines how they have changed pre- and post-21st century. First, a policy document related to education in KSA in general (pre-21st century) is analyzed along with an English language teaching (ELT) policy document of the same period. Next, two general policy documents post-21st century are explored, followed by one related to ELT policy. Finally, one post-21st century document related to higher education is discussed. The “network of practices” within which these documents are situated are first detailed, as well as the structural order of the discourse, and some linguistic analysis of the choice of vocabulary and grammatical structures (Meyer, 2001). Issues which might be problematic to the learning and teaching identities of the students and teachers interpreting these documents are also highlighted. Finally, we consider whether the network of practices at this institution and KSA in general “needs” the problems identified in the analysis and critically reflect on the analysis.

This paper provides a further investigation into the application of Correspondence Analysis (CA) as outlined by Greenacre (1984, 1993), which is one technique for “quantifying qualitative data” in research on learning and teaching. It also builds on the utilisation of CA in the development of the emerging discipline of English as an International Language provided by Hassall and Ganesh (1996, 1999). This is accomplished by considering its application to the analysis of attitudinal data that positions the developing pedagogy of Teaching English as an International Language (TEIL) (see Hassall, 1996a & ff.) within the more established discipline of World Englishes (cf. Kachru, 1985, 1990). The multidimensional statistical technique Correspondence Analysis is used to provide an assessment of the interdependence of the rows and columns of a data matrix (primarily, a two-way contingency table). In this case, attitudinal data, produced at a number of international workshops which focused on the development of a justifiable pedagogy for Teaching English as an International Language (TEIL), are examined to provide a more complete picture of how these venues differed from each other with respect to the collective responses of the respondents. CA facilitates dimensionality reduction and provides graphical displays in low-dimensional spaces. In other words, it converts the rows and columns of a data matrix or contingency table into a series of points on a graph. The current study presents analyses of two different interpretations of this data.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an interview with Tom Adams, Chief Executive Officer of Rosetta Stone Inc., one of the world's leading language‐learning solution providers.

This briefing is prepared by an independent interviewer.

Rosetta Stone^® is an interactive software program that uses technology to simulate the way we all learnt our first language as a child. Learners develop language proficiency naturally, by connecting new words with their meaning, in real‐life contexts that are technology enabled. Interactivity makes learning engaging, and the fact this is a computer‐based tool makes it ideal for busy learners that value convenience.

Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that can have a broader social impact.

Language skills are a vital part of global business, and selling to businesses, organizations and education establishments has become Rosetta Stone's largest growth area over the past few years. The world is learning languages as the world goes global, and language‐learning providers are an extremely important tool in facilitating this globalization.

The purpose of this paper is to show the development of English as the main international language for business, its advantages and disadvantages and the different variants of English.

The paper discusses competition from other languages and emphasises need for British business itself to acquire fluency in foreign languages and thereby understand other cultures to gain competitive advantage. The author deplores HE's reduction in language teaching and stresses need for development of a simpler, standardised international English for business which can be more easily used by both English native speakers and others. The paper analyses the reasons for spread of English and its strengths and weaknesses and deduces need for a simpler form of international English for global business use..

The paper concludes that British business should itself acquire linguistic and cultural fluency in foreign languages as well as supporting ways of making English more standardised and simpler for foreigners to acquire.

The paper shows how British business competitive advantage can be increased by reducing linguistic complacency in parallel with supporting the development of a more effective means of communication in English in international business.

Ideally all science should belong to everyone, in the sense that everyone needing scientific information for whatever purpose ought to be able to procure quickly the most apposite items of the whole world's literature and be equally able to understand and use them wherever they come from.

Comparative education has typically focused on differences across countries and sought to explain these differences as a function of differences in historical legacies, in societal prerequisites (as in variants of functionalist analysis), or in internal patterns of competition and conflict across social classes and status groups. In these studies the independent and the dependent variables of interest are endogenous characteristics of national societies. The latter are presumed to operate mostly as “closed systems” with their past trajectories (think path dependencies) and their present states (think present system needs or current power configurations) shaping the educational outcomes of interest. These endogenous characteristics may depict properties of the economy, e.g. degree of industrialization, the polity, e.g. democratic versus authoritarian regimes, the culture, e.g. Confucian group centric versus Protestant individual oriented, etc. or the educational system itself, centralized versus decentralized. The latter, of course, may be viewed both as a dependent variable influenced by the degree to which the polity is centralized or decentralized as well as an independent variable, influencing the growth of enrollments. In the classical Collins (1979) formulation the comparatively greater growth of post-primary enrollments in the United States was an outcome of status competition which itself was made more likely by a decentralized educational system. The latter in turn reflected and was shaped by a decentralized political system.

Misunderstanding and harmful stereotyping have become commonplace amongst people in the United States and the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region since 2001, if not earlier. If universities are the locus of transformative education, work remains towards remedying these issues.One non-profit organisation, “Natafaham (pseudonym, Arabic for « we understand each other”), works to undo this negativity student by student. It brings participants from the MENA and Europe/North America into dialogue via Zoom each week. The inter-cultural dialogue availed to participants is empowering to actors, including the dialogue facilitator. This narrative is an autoethnographic exploration of my experience as an intercultural dialogue facilitator. Yet reviewing contemporaneous notes and reflections revealed structural aspects of this programme that empower voices from the MENA region, while facilitating learning amongst participants on both sides of the Atlantic. Such aspects include the format and the location of the programme, its focus on individuals rather than institutions or groups, its mixed top-down and bottom-up approach, and the opportunities it avails for ascension to positions of authority. This narrative analyses these aspects through several lenses and academic traditions, including those of global citizenship, critical internationalisation, (reciprocal) global service learning, and socio-cultural frameworks of second language acquisition. The chapter urges that these aspects are recognised as key catalysts of (more) equal relationships between youth in the MENA region and the United States, which merit widespread replication. It concludes by envisioning a still more equal relationship predicated upon more equitable language usage.

This article emphasises the concern that standards in the teaching, understanding and use of the English language are in danger and that the danger is one of confusion. The importance of teaching children the structure of English is discussed. The role of the English language and its use within the European context are also discussed, as is the greater effort that should be made in teaching and learning other European languages, particularly as 1992 approaches. Within the Commonwealth English is a cohesive force but as an international language it still needs to be nurtured and developed even though it may appear to be firmly established.

The ability for learners to interact online via their avatars in a 3-D simulation space means that virtual worlds afford a host of educational opportunities not offered by other learning technology platforms, but their use also raises several pertinent issues that warrant consideration. This chapter reviews the educational use of virtual worlds from a design perspective. Virtual-world definitions are explored, along with their key educational characteristics. Different virtual-world environments are briefly contrasted, including Second Life, Active Worlds, Open Sim, and Minecraft. A wide variety of virtual-world uses in schools and universities are examined so as to understand their versatility. Key educational benefits of virtual worlds are distilled from the literature, such as the ability to facilitate 3-D simulations, role-plays, construction tasks, and immersive learning. Emergent issues surrounding the use of virtual worlds are also analyzed, including cognitive load, safety, and representational fidelity. One higher education and one school level vignette are provided in order to offer more detailed insight into the use of virtual worlds in practice. Recommendations for learning design and implementation are presented, based on the thematic analysis of contemporary virtual-worlds research.