ELT World News

Japan:Professor sets high goals for business English

For Japanese businesspeople to carry out their duties in English, they should ultimately aim for English skills equivalent to at least 900 points out of 990 on the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC)–a near-native speakers’ level–a group of researchers has proposed, based on a survey of more than 7,300 businesspeople.
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India: English Medium Classes Begin Amid Outcry

The government on Thursday commenced English medium from class VI with Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) syllabus in 6,500 high schools in rural areas as a new experiment amid criticism against launching the scheme without proper trained teaching staff.
At a press conference here on Thursday, School Education Minister C. Damodar Rajanarsimha and Principal Secretary [...]

Hong Kong:The Cat Got Your Mother Tongue?

It was an admission of cultural defeat; but then Hong Kong is nothing if not pragmatic about such things. On June 6th its education minister, Michael Suen Ming-yeung, lifted restrictions that forced four-fifths of the territory’s more than 500 secondary schools to teach in the “mother tongue”, ie, Cantonese, the main language of its residents [...]

Brunei Darussalam: Teaching Reading Workshop Receives Positive Feedback

The Department of Schools at the Ministry of Education yesterday organised a Teaching Reading Workshop, where 30 Form 1 teachers from schools in the Brunei-Muara District learnt various strategies, tools and techniques that could be used in the classroom to enhance reading in the English language.
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United Kingdom: English Children Can’t Read English

In the country that gave birth to the English language, one in five 11 year olds can’t read and have failed to master mathematics.
The United Kingdom’s chief schools inspector, Christine Gilbert, warned last month that these children could be on the educational scrapheap at 16 — unemployed and pursuing no further training. Gilbert said: “If [...]

Korea: For English Studies, Koreans Say Goodbye to Dad

On a sunny afternoon recently, half a dozen South Korean mothers came to pick up their children at the Remuera Primary School here, greeting one another warmly in a schoolyard filled with New Zealanders. The mothers, members of the largest group of foreigners at the public school, were part of what are known in South [...]

Vietnam: Billions VND for Children’s Education

Nguyen Ky Nam, PhD, of Australian nationality, has noted that when he returned to Vietnam in 2006, he spent a lot of time choosing a school for his son, Ky Anh, who had finished the first class in Australia. Nam wanted his son not only to speak English fluently and understand foreign cultures, but also [...]

Teen ESL results better than ever in canada

Canada: Teen ESL Results Better Than Ever, Province Says
Teens learning English as a second language are passing the provincial literacy test at higher rates than ever. The test, written in March and graded only as pass or fail, determines if students have the reading and writing skills they’re supposed to have gained by the [...]

Sri Lanka: Taking English to far-flung places

Sri Lanka: Taking English to far-flung places
It is a lazy Sunday morning but a diverse group from all over the country is gathered in Colombo intently listening to senior trainers going through the paces of how to teach English. This is just one of the numerous workshops and training programmes for teachers and would-be [...]

Becky Ndjoze-Ojo: importance of English cannot be overemphasized

Namibia: Minister Stresses Importance of English
Deputy Minister of Education Dr Becky Ndjoze-Ojo says the importance of the English language locally, nationally and internationally cannot be overemphasized. She was the keynote speaker at a two-day conference of the English Teachers’ Association (NETA) at the Polytechnic of Namibia on Friday.
“There are Namibian languages that must be [...]