Many of the people close to my heart are transnationals such as myself. Belonging is a frequently discussed topic in my circles, and often a topic that is surrounded by…
Ingrid PillerFebruary 26, 2011
A most amazing book has just landed on my desk: Do you speak Swiss, edited by Walter Haas, is the final report on a Swiss National Research Project devoted to…
Ingrid PillerFebruary 14, 2011
Persian version of my blog post about English as the non-language of globalization. Translated by Niloufar Behrooz (نیلوفر بهروز) (نوشتار شماره ٢ در مجموعه نوشتار های کوتاه درباره ی…
Ingrid PillerFebruary 7, 2011
Like many I’ve had my eyes on the protests in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world over the past couple of days. The way angry young men and women…
Ingrid PillerJanuary 31, 2011
Are you tall enough to learn English? Have you ever reflected on the relationship between height and language learning? Well, I haven’t, and I’ve been in language teaching and learning…
Ingrid PillerJanuary 28, 2011
In the past couple of weeks I’ve had the good fortune to be able to visit a number of universities and research organizations in the Middle East. The cities I’ve…
Ingrid PillerJanuary 23, 2011
The world in Arabia I spent my last day in the Middle East at Dubai Mall, the self-proclaimed “Centre of Now.” The mall guide has the heading “Welcome to Everything.”…
Ingrid PillerJanuary 21, 2011
Yesterday I spoke with a study agent here in the UAE and he told me that Australian universities trying to attract students from the GCC region just didn’t get the…
Ingrid PillerJanuary 17, 2011
During my recent lecture about “Teaching language, teaching culture” at the Fujairah Women’s College, I spoke about English language teaching materials in Japan and the ways in which they constructed…
Ingrid PillerJanuary 15, 2011
The Iranian-American comedian Maz Jobrani has a routine about the stereotypical views of Iranians as fanatics often presented in the Western media: Every time they show us on TV they…
Ingrid PillerJanuary 6, 2011
I visited Persepolis today. Persepolis proved to be a great way to end the year and to reflect on the passage of time. More unexpectedly, Persepolis also proved to be…
Ingrid PillerJanuary 1, 2011
Even a casual observer of the linguistic landscape in Iran will have to conclude that Iranians have a collective fetish for English. Almost all public signage is bilingual in English…
Ingrid PillerDecember 30, 2010
Divine linguistic diversity I’ve spent the past two days convening the first-ever Language-on-the-Move workshop at the University of Tehran. The idea was to explore language contact and multilingualism in the…
Ingrid PillerDecember 23, 2010
In the year in which I’ve been away from the UAE, the fervor for the use of “Arabian Gulf” instead of “Persian Gulf” has certainly heated up here. This map…
Ingrid PillerDecember 20, 2010
“What is the secret to successful intercultural communication?” This was one of the questions I was asked after my lecture on “New directions in intercultural communication” at United Arab Emirates…
Ingrid PillerDecember 15, 2010
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