American society places little value on meaningful multilingualism for young people, or for adults for that matter. Nowhere is this lack of valuation more apparent than in the U.S. public…
Christof Demont-HeinrichNovember 23, 2011
In the past three decades attention has shifted from communicative competence to discourse as a frame for understanding the challenges faced by language learners. Yet, the question of how stereotyping…
Vahid ParvareshOctober 12, 2011
Source: Kang 2009, p. 201 Every linguistics undergraduate student is by now familiar with the fact of linguistic imperialism in academic publishing where the pressure to publish in international journals…
Ingrid PillerAugust 26, 2011
Japanese stop sign The current global orthodoxy holds that learning English is good: individuals who know English are supposed to have an advantage in the job market and countries with…
Ingrid PillerJune 27, 2011
Futenma Airbase, right in the middle of the city I’ve recently come across the story of Chibana Shoichi, who burnt the Japanese flag in 1987 to commemorate the Okinawan victims…
Ingrid PillerJune 2, 2011
When I first started teaching in Australia, I had a Korean-Australian student in one of my undergraduate classes who sounded like most of the other students in my class, like…
Ingrid PillerFebruary 18, 2011
Yoshiko Nakano's essay in Yomiuri Newspaper “Young people in Japan no longer want to go abroad.” This news reached me in Australia last year and formed part of the background…
Kimie Takahashi 高橋君江January 11, 2011
Joe Hill front cover Today 105 years ago, on November 19, 1905, Joe Hill was executed in Utah. Although his name is rather forgotten today, Joe Hill was arguably one…
Ingrid PillerNovember 19, 2010
Language in the catfish war I’ve just read False Economy and in addition to learning many new intriguing things about economic history, I’ve also learnt that the catfish war, was,…
Ingrid PillerNovember 13, 2010
Commemorative stamp, German Federal Post, 1989: 300 years French School Berlin I’ve been teaching about bilingualism for more than a decade and when I speak about bilingual education and dual-immersion…
Ingrid PillerOctober 26, 2010
Yesterday, the New York Times carried a heart-breaking story about an exceptional school principal forced from her position under No-Child-Left-Behind legislation in order for the school district to obtain federal…
Ingrid PillerJuly 21, 2010
English-Only at Bon Secours From what I read, there is a nursing shortage in the Global North. From North America to Japan and from Europe to the Gulf countries, rich…
Ingrid PillerJuly 19, 2010
Multilingual sign in Namtso (Image Credit: Wikipedia) Persian version of my recent blog post about Chinglish Translated by Tahmineh Tayebi (تهمینه طیبی) & Vahid Parvaresh (وحید پرورش) تصور کنید که…
Ingrid PillerJune 21, 2010
Multilingual sign in Namtso (Image Credit: Wikipedia) Korean version of my recent blog post about Chinglish Translated by Sun-Young Chung (정선영) 뉴욕타임즈가 독자들로부터 그들의 재미난 금발머리 농담이나 유색인종 사람과 관련된 배꼽…
Ingrid PillerJune 7, 2010
Multilingual sign in Namtso (Image Credit: Wikipedia) Malay version of my recent blog post about Chinglish Translated by Ridwan Wahid Bayangkan sekiranya akhbar New York Times meminta pembacanya menghantar ‘blonde jokes’…
Ingrid PillerJune 2, 2010
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