In the past thirty years, Iran’s population has exploded from about 40 million to more than 72 million. Such rapid growth has resulted in the vast majority of the population…
Vahid ParvareshJuly 4, 2011
Much of my research over the past decade has involved talking to migrants to Australia and overseas students about their experiences of language learning and settlement. In these conversations, I…
Ingrid PillerMay 24, 2011
Over the past year or so I’ve started to make my daughter do daily arithmetic practice in German. My reason for doing so stems from my dissatisfaction with the ways…
Ingrid PillerMay 9, 2011
One’s name is one of the most salient features for one’s identity. Some parents suffer from extraordinary indecisiveness when giving their newborn a wonderfully auspicious and proper name, all with…
Grace Chu-Lin ChangMay 2, 2011
My daughter attends a public elementary school in NSW where the children are taught French for one hour each week. In 2009, she was away from her school for one…
Ingrid PillerMarch 4, 2011
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
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
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
Thai alphabet Learning Thai has its many challenges but one of the great joys for me has been encountering the Thai script. At the start I felt like a five-year-old-child,…
Sheila PhamFebruary 11, 2011
Last year the British Council initiated a dialogue about language policy and particularly language-in-education policy in Pakistan, and their report was recently published. The introduction includes the following two statements:…
Muhammad Ali KhanFebruary 5, 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 December and January Ingrid will be visiting universities in Iran and the United Arab Emirates and she will be speaking about her research in the sociolinguistics of multilingualism, language…
Lg_on_the_moveNovember 30, 2010
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
Earlier this term I intercepted a note my 7-year-old had written to her teacher: “Ger Ger Ger; Don’t be so rude.” She was objecting to a reading comprehension exercise about…
Ingrid PillerNovember 6, 2010
Lotus Pond (part of Shinobazu Pond) in Ueno Park “There are so many stupid Japanese women around, huh? Many Westerners are coming to our country and the stupid women love…
Kimie Takahashi 高橋君江October 11, 2010
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