Noting ASEAN's adoption of English as its sole workng language, this book analyzes the language education policies of Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, Sri Lanka and China, and traces the influence of globalization on English language education in Asia.

A comprehensive account of how English is being used and reshaped by multilingual Asian speakers to fit their everyday needs.

The lingua franca role of English, coupled with its status as the official language of ASEAN, has important implications for language policy and language education. These include the relationship between English, the respective national languages of ASEAN and thousands of local languages. How can the demand for English be balanced against the need for people to acquire their national language and mother tongue? While many will also need a regional lingua franca, they are learning English as the first foreign language from primary school in all ASEAN countries. Might not this early introduction of English threaten local languages and children's ability to learn? Or can English be introduced and taught in such a way that it can complement local languages rather than replace them? The aim of this book is to explore questions such as these and then make recommendations on language policy and language education for regional policymakers. The book will be important for regional policymakers and language education professionals. It should also benefit language teachers, especially, but by no means exclusively, English language teachers. The book will be of interest to all who are interested in the development of English as an international language and the possible implications of this upon local languages and cultures. Andy Kirkpatrickis chair professor of English as an international language at the Hong Kong Institute of Education and director of the Institute's Research Centre into Language Education and Acquisition in Multilingual Societies. His research interests include the development of regional varieties of English and the history of Chinese rhetoric. "Much research has been carried out on varieties of English used in Southeast Asia, but how intelligible these varieties are to others and whether a shift towards an international 'standard' variety occurs in interactions between people from the region, has been much less discussed. This volume, which provides a comprehensive account of the roles and functions of English in ASEAN, and gives a linguistic description of the English spoken in the region, followed by an approach to teaching English called the 'multilingual model', is therefore a welcome contribution to studies on English in Asia." - Azirah Hashim, Professor of English, University of Malaya

This volume offers comprehensive 'state-of-the-art' overviews of educational policies concerning the teaching of English in a large number of Asian countries. Each contribution is written by a leading expert and gives a clear assessment of current policies and future trends. Starting with a description of the English education policies in the respective countries, the contributors then delve into the 'nuts and bolts' of the English education policies and how they play out in practice in the education system, in schools, in the curriculum, and in teaching. Topics covered include the balance between the acquisition of English and the national language, political, cultural, economic and technical factors that strengthen or weaken the learning of English.

In 1989, Bernard Spolsky published Conditions for Second Language Learning (Oxford University Press). At the 2012 Annual Conference of Asia TEFL, a number of senior scholars were invited to comment upon the relevance of the book to the teaching of English in their region, and to make suggestions on how it might be updated. This volume contains revised versions of these talks, and thus provides a survey of the conditions for teaching English in Asia. Most contributors found the Conditions model useful, but there has been a major change in emphasis in the past two decades: whereas the 1989 book emphasized linguistic and psycholinguistic conditions, more recent work generally emphasizes the importance of sociolinguistic and language policy conditions for teaching English in Asia today.

Asia is now home to some 800 million multilingual speakers of English, more than the total number of native English speakers, and how they use English is continuously evolving and changing to reflect their cultural backgrounds and everyday experiences. Can English, therefore, be considered an Asian language? Drawing upon the Asian Corpus of English, this book will be the first comprehensive account of the roles, uses and features of English in Asia, encompassing several different varieties of Asian English. Chapters cover the distinctive linguistic features of English in different settings, such as in law, religion and popular culture, as well as the use of local rhetorical, pragmatic and cultural styles and its use as a lingua franca among Asian multilinguals. It will also examine the role of English in education - from primary through to higher education - and consider the implications of this for other languages of Asia.

In Asia, English is no longer a foreign language but a key resource for education, government, business and the general public. Whereas thirty years ago, British and American experts believed that the best way to improve the quality of English teaching was to cancel any programs below the secondary level, Asian nations as well as European are now introducing English in primary school. But there are major obstacles to overcome: the training of enough local teachers or the hiring of English speakers, the preparation of suitable teaching materials, the development of useful tests, and the design of workable curriculums. The chapters in this book, written by leading English-teaching professionals in seven Asian countries and originally delivered at the 2010 annual conference of Asia TEFL which took place in Hanoi, Vietnam, describe and analyze national policies and how they are implemented. The coverage is wide: China with its huge number of students learning English, Japan working to make the transition from elementary to secondary school seamless, Singapore continuing to use English as medium of instruction for its multilingual population, Korea developing English education policies to recognize the increased role of English alongside the national language, India building on its colonial past to make English an economic resource, Vietnam fitting English into a program of national rebuilding, and Taiwan spreading its English teaching outside the national capital. This is not a report of the views of outside experts, but of local experiences understood by local scholars of international standing. Policy makers, educators, researchers and scholars will be able to gain valuable insights from Asian experts.