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This paper analyzes the attitudes Saudi university students hold toward Western culture. Saudi participants completed an open-ended questionnaire about attitudes toward Western culture, consisting of five open-ended questions. This paper presents questionnaire responses from 210 university students in Saudi Arabia (male and female). This paper finds that most of these students are integratively motivated and therefore show a positive disposition toward Western culture. It also shows a correlation between instrumental motivation and students who study on science and engineering tracks. The study shows that a clear majority of students like some aspect of the West or Western culture. The study concludes that these Saudi students are predisposed to interact favorably with the West.

The study systematically analyses the path dependency and path-shaping of borrowed education policy, tracing it from the global through the national to individual schools. It also revisits the case schools after five years to map the school level policy paths.

Recently, path-dependency heuristics have drawn attention in predicting educational policy trajectories. However, these studies are primarily theoretical, and those empirical studies do not capture what happens at the school level. This paper fills the research gap by presenting a model that synthesises the research from diverse fields and is informed by findings from a longitudinal case study of educational outsourcing in public schools in Hong Kong and Korea.

The findings highlight path dependency interactions across educational levels diachronically and synchronically, while aptly incorporating the creative ways school leaders exercise their agency therein. The paper concludes with new insights into policy trajectory and education outsourcing.

The study substantiates and extends previously suggested theoretical models on the paths of travelling educational policies and identifies the factors that shape the paths. It also sheds light on how school leaders navigate the structures that constrain their actions or create a new path and pursue their educational goals.

Studying abroad is not new for Hong Kong students, especially those from the middle class. For a variety of reasons, traversing to Mainland universities has been an unconventional path confined mostly to students who pursued specific programs, or had family or social ties. Beginning in 2012, an admission scheme was launched for Hong Kong students applying to Mainland universities. The purpose of this paper is to review the admission scheme.

This paper draws on both quantitative and qualitative data sources. It includes statistics from official records of students’ application and enrollment figures, and documents obtained from multiple sources, as well as qualitative data through interviews of Hong Kong students who are studying in the Mainland universities.

The key findings are that since the implementation of the admission scheme, the number of applicants is rather stable irrespective of the changing socio-economic and political context. With the preferential treatment for Hong Kong students, low tuition fees, government financial assistance and scholarships, most students still consider studying in the Mainland a backup plan rather than a first choice. The academic performance of the students and academic/career aspirations have influenced their choice and decisions.

This paper contributes through providing both primary and secondary data to help understand the level of acceptance on the scheme since its implementation. It also reveals the perceptions of the students who have made their choice to study cross the border. In facing the emergent economic, socio-cultural and political challenges, some policies recommendations are proposed to boost the acceptance of the scheme. Moreover, it fills the research gap on student mobility from Hong Kong to Mainland China in the corpus of literature.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between preferred choice of school subject and student information behaviour (IB).

Mixed methods were employed. In all, 152 students, teachers and librarians participated in interviews or focus groups. In total, 1,375 students, key stage 3 (11-14 years) to postgraduate, responded to a questionnaire. The research population was drawn from eight schools, two further education colleges and three universities. Insights from the literature review and the qualitative research phase led to a hypothesis which was investigated using the questionnaire: that students studying hard subjects are less likely to engage in deep IB than students studying soft subjects.

Results support the hypothesis that preferences for subjects at school affect choice of university degree. The hypothesis that a preference for hard or soft subjects affects IB is supported by results of an analysis in which like or dislike of maths/ICT is correlated with responses to the survey. Interviewees’ comments led to the proposal that academic subjects can be classified according to whether a subject helps students to acquire a “tool of the Mind” or to apply such a tool. A model suggesting how IB may differ depending on whether intellectual tools are being acquired or applied is proposed.

The “inner logic” of certain subjects and their pedagogies appears closely linked to IB. This should be considered when developing teaching programmes.

The findings offer a new perspective on subject classification and its association with IB, and a new model of the association between IB and tool acquisition or application is proposed, incorporating the perspectives of both teacher and student.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to find out the perspectives of students and English teachers on English Lingua Franca (ELF) at a tertiary level in one of the public universities in Lhokseumawe Municipality in Aceh and to find out the possibility of adopting the concept of teaching English as ELF to raise the students’ awareness of their identity as part of the ASEAN Economic community and as a means of communication among the Community.

Design/Methodology/Approach – The research employs basic interpretive study by delivering questionnaires to 40 students from different disciplines and conducting interview to 6 English teachers from targeted research university in Lhokseumawe, Aceh, Indonesia.

Findings – The study addresses that the majority of the students are aware that English is no longer possessed by an inner circle of English users and realize the use of English as means of communication in globally context. However, the students do not understand the English as ILF. Besides, they do not enable to envisage themselves as part of the global community of English users as their identity. The research also indicates that majority the interviewed English teachers do not realize the concept of teaching ELF in the university.

Research Limitations/Implications – The findings of this research may shed light for other English teachers in Aceh to improve their teaching method in order to improve students’ speaking skill and their awareness of their identity as a part of global imagined community of English users within the ASEAN Community Economic context.

Practical Implications – The solutions offered in the paper could improve the teaching method of English teachers particularly in Aceh, Indonesia.

Originality/Value – The research of students’ and teachers’ perspective of ELF in Lhokseumawe, Aceh, has not yet been published.

This paper provides a further investigation into the application of Correspondence Analysis (CA) as outlined by Greenacre (1984, 1993), which is one technique for “quantifying qualitative data” in research on learning and teaching. It also builds on the utilisation of CA in the development of the emerging discipline of English as an International Language provided by Hassall and Ganesh (1996, 1999). This is accomplished by considering its application to the analysis of attitudinal data that positions the developing pedagogy of Teaching English as an International Language (TEIL) (see Hassall, 1996a & ff.) within the more established discipline of World Englishes (cf. Kachru, 1985, 1990). The multidimensional statistical technique Correspondence Analysis is used to provide an assessment of the interdependence of the rows and columns of a data matrix (primarily, a two-way contingency table). In this case, attitudinal data, produced at a number of international workshops which focused on the development of a justifiable pedagogy for Teaching English as an International Language (TEIL), are examined to provide a more complete picture of how these venues differed from each other with respect to the collective responses of the respondents. CA facilitates dimensionality reduction and provides graphical displays in low-dimensional spaces. In other words, it converts the rows and columns of a data matrix or contingency table into a series of points on a graph. The current study presents analyses of two different interpretations of this data.

The present study aims to examine the attitudes of future Saudi female English as a Foreign Language (EFL) student-teachers toward English native-like pronunciation to investigate their misconceptions about English as a Lingua Franca (ELF).

The researcher used a questionnaire to collect the data for the study.

The results indicate that students and teachers have positive attitudes toward native-like pronunciation. However, the results also show a realization on the participants’ part about the status of ELF. The study concludes that although they have positive attitudes toward native-like English pronunciation, students use ELF and recognize that such pronunciation is not essential for global communication. The study results show that the participants are aware of ELF, filling a vacuum in the literature about how Saudi students perceive ELF. It encourages EFL teachers, syllabus designers, developers and researchers to provide more information on this topic and stresses international communicative ability, as ELF speakers require.

As the study has some limitations that could be addressed in future research, other researchers should address these deficiencies in future studies. One limitation is that the study only involved Saudi female future teachers. Further researchers can investigate male Saudi future EFL teachers. Another limitation is that the study focused on future teachers of English in Saudi Arabia in only one institution. Other Saudi EFL teachers and other Arab future teachers could be further investigated to reject or support the study’s findings. Additionally, a more detailed demographic background could be specified in further research for more comprehensive results. In addition, similar studies could be conducted with participants from different EFL-speaking countries. Another limitation of this study is that it covers the attitudes of EFL future teachers toward native-like pronunciation and indirectly investigates their views on ELF. More research is needed to determine how EFL learners and teachers perceive ELF. The actual use of English globally could become more enlightened with further study.

This study’s findings have implications for instructors, syllabus designers and researchers. The results suggest that EFL instructors, syllabus designers and researchers should focus more on international communicative competence than native-like competence. While designing course materials or teaching, teachers and syllabus developers should be fully aware of the status of ELF. Designers of syllabi should include conversations among speakers from different linguistic backgrounds. Effective communication is a priority. Students should become more familiar with global communication outside the classroom and be prepared to engage in it.

Students should become more familiar with global communication outside the classroom and be prepared to engage in it.

Native varieties of English have gained popularity over the years among EFL teachers and learners. However, researchers have debated the importance of EFL students achieving native-like English proficiency.

This research clarifies the birth and evolution of “Social Study” in Myanmar through analyzing the differences of contents and approaches between “Social Studies” under the military administration and that under the recent democratic administration.

The author obtained “Social Studies” textbooks that were used both in the past as well as in present day and translated them into English. The textbooks’ contents were analyzed in detail while referring Japanese and American “Social Studies” textbooks. Specifically, the author focused on the content structure of the textbooks and the learning objectives and approaches used. Each textbook was analyzed in accordance with the era in which they were used considering the social and political conditions at those times. In addition, the author clarified the necessary competencies for the people of Myanmar during the new era through discussions with many Myanmar educators. Based on this research, the author advised the Ministry of Education on the content of new “Social Studies” textbooks and supported their development.

The idea of child-centered education introduced under the military administration was further strengthened in the recent new “Social Studies” textbooks allowing students to learn by tapping into their interests and also encouraging deep thinking and creativity. This approach changed their learning from memorization without deep thinking in the past to contemplating things and creating new ideas.

The findings can provide curriculum developers and educators in other countries with a broad direction on how to reform “Social Studies” and related subjects curricula and textbooks in their own countries in the future.