This case study reports how three high-school teachers from two state schools in Colombia enacted the National English Suggested Curriculum by the Ministry of Education. The teachers' trajectories of action were analyzed through semi-structured interviews, teachers' narratives, and lesson observations. Using the ecological model of agency as a…

National curriculum standards for different countries mean some International Baccalaureate (IB) schools must often balance IB and national standards. Literature on how schools find this balance is limited. Using a qualitative case study design, we examined the perspectives of teachers of English in a Chinese IB school that recently employed a…

Israel has two official languages: Hebrew and Arabic, and one semi-official language, English. Within this multilingual environment, the national English curriculum relates to all learners as one homogenous population. There are no specific directives regarding the linguistic needs of diverse language backgrounds. Studies of literacy acquisition…

This paper reports on an emerging type of international school, which we refer to as the Chinese internationalized school. This school caters to Chinese citizens and aspires to offer a fusion of national and international curricula. The majority of internationalized schools in China are to be found in large metropolitan centers. Accordingly, the…

This paper explores the agentive role of school leaders in interpreting and implementing macro language education policies at preschool level in the Maldives. The Preschool Management Act of 2012 initiated a change in the medium of instruction from English to Dhivehi, recognising the importance of developing children's literacy skills in the…

Given the important status of students as major stakeholders of the National English Curriculum, this study investigated specific needs of curriculum-takers for an English curriculum and compared the results with analyses of curriculum evaluation from curriculum-completers. We implemented a needs assessment survey targeting 68 elementary school…

In China, developing students' overall communicative competence was set as the central goal of the current college English curriculum requirements since 2004. However, this goal has remained largely unfulfilled, particularly with regard to writing competence. This study proposes that the genre-based pedagogy in systemic functional linguistics may…

Even though there are four English language skills in the Indonesia's national curriculum at upper secondary schools, each of these skills is given an unequal emphasis since only reading and listening skills are formally tested in the national examination. Although writing competence possesses a particular stake as the determinant of students'…

This article reports a multiple case study that explores the potential impact of Japan's national curriculum for senior high school English as a foreign language (EFL), specifically in relation to the integration of grammar teaching with communicative work, a key component of the curriculum and an area globally underresearched in high schools. The…

Recent conservative reviews of Australia's national English curriculum argue for a return to less critical approaches to English language education and a stronger emphasis on traditional, functional approaches to provide adequate English learning experiences for school-age students. This neoliberal shift poses a threat to adolescent learners from…

The purpose of this research was to investigate the effectiveness of computer games in learning English as a foreign language and the extent to which they increase motivation in young students. More particularly, this research investigated the validity of the hypothesis that computer games are a particularly motivating means for young students to…

This article focuses on the learning affordances of different language and communication curricula in the world. For reasons of space, only two national education systems (Finland and Singapore) and their language and communication curricula are referred to. The accounts of national education systems consist of the identification of mechanisms…

Curent national curicula, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, and EFL materials highlight the importance of the students' development of oral skils. This study stems from a cros-sectional survey of the teaching of oral skils in Secondary Education in a Spanish local context (Aragón) caried out in 2012 on both teachers and…

Over the last 20 years, the study of language teachers' beliefs has attracted much attention. One important strand of this research has been the exploration of the relationship between teachers' beliefs and their practice, generating a recurring research theme of identifying "consistency" and "inconsistency" between teachers'…

This article critically examines how Malta, the smallest EU state, has developed specific 'small' or 'minimalist tolerance' discourses and practices in the education of ethnic minorities and immigrants. As a previous colony of Britain, now a 'new' host country with, relative to its size, the largest influx of undocumented immigrants, Malta faces…