Walter John Clark presents 'International Language, Past, Present & Future', a comprehensive exploration of the past, present, and future of international communication. Drawing from historical attempts and existing international languages, the author highlights the rise of Esperanto and its potential to bridge linguistic barriers. With detailed specimens, grammar, and vocabulary, this book offers a practical glimpse into the structure and benefits of Esperanto as a potential universal language.

In early 2012, the global scientific community erupted with news that the elusive Higgs boson had likely been found, providing potent validation for the Standard Model of how the universe works. Scientists from more than one hundred countries contributed to this discovery—proving, beyond any doubt, that a new era in science had arrived, an era of multinationalism and cooperative reach. Globalization, the Internet, and digital technology all play a role in making this new era possible, but something more fundamental is also at work. In all scientific endeavors lies the ancient drive for sharing ideas and knowledge, and now this can be accomplished in a single tongue— English. But is this a good thing? In Does Science Need a Global Language?, Scott L. Montgomery seeks to answer this question by investigating the phenomenon of global English in science, how and why it came about, the forms in which it appears, what advantages and disadvantages it brings, and what its future might be. He also examines the consequences of a global tongue, considering especially emerging and developing nations, where research is still at a relatively early stage and English is not yet firmly established. Throughout the book, he includes important insights from a broad range of perspectives in linguistics, history, education, geopolitics, and more. Each chapter includes striking and revealing anecdotes from the front-line experiences of today’s scientists, some of whom have struggled with the reality of global scientific English. He explores topics such as student mobility, publication trends, world Englishes, language endangerment, and second language learning, among many others. What he uncovers will challenge readers to rethink their assumptions about the direction of contemporary science, as well as its future.

Since the publication of Robert Pianta's 2001 handbook on the quality of the teacher-student relationship, much has been accomplished and research contributions have multiplied from different authors and countries. This testifies to the richness and continuous evolution of this field of research. The quality of the teacher-student relationship has been recognized as an important factor in the psychological development of students and seems to increase their adjustment to the school context. A good quality of relationship, according to attachment theorists, is characterized by closeness, affection, and respect. In this direction, the teacher can offer a relational context that can support the child in their learning processes and psychological development, preventing negative outcomes. The research focused on defining the salient features of this educational relationship and refining tools that could collect the perceptions of students and teachers, trying to identify the possible outcomes associated and the mechanisms involved.

This book explores the benefits of teaching reflection upon one’s own culture to develop intercultural competence and looks into the relationship between the proficiency level of the second language and the target culture. It introduces new debates on the concept of ‘critical cultural awareness’ in intercultural learning and teaching, for example the indiscriminate use of terminologies related to the idea of ‘intercultural encounters’. Also, it provides insight into the relationship between language and culture using a new tool such as the Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters through Visual Media. The presentation of different approaches, tools, barriers, educational and cultural realities, online intercultural exchange projects and concepts such as motivation, attitudes, stereotyping, otherization, and critical cultural awareness makes this book an excellent instrument not only for teachers but also for researchers, policy-makers and private and public institutions that want to explore culture and interculturality and to promote an intercultural competence and global citizenship among its learners / users / clients and / or an interculturally-oriented language education.

Dewey's idea of Project-based Learning (PBL) was introduced into the field of second language education nearly two decades ago as a way to reflect the principles of student-centered teaching (Hedge, 1993). Since then, PBL has also become a popular language and literacy activity at various levels and in various contexts (see Beckett, 1999; Fried-Booth, 2002; Levis & Levis, 2003; Kobayashi, 2003; Luongo- Orlando, 2001; Mohan & Beckett, 2003; Weinstein, 2004). For example, it has been applied to teach various ESL and EFL skills around the world (e.g., Fried-Booth, 2002). More recently, PBL has been heralded as the most appropriate approach to teaching content-based second language education (Bunch, et al., 2001; Stoller, 1997), English for specific purposes (Fried-Booth, 2002), community-based language socialization (Weinstien, 2004), and critical and higher order thinking as well as problem-solving skills urged by the National Research Council (1999). Despite this emphasis, there is a severe shortage of empirical research on PBL and research-based frameworks and models based on sound theoretical guidance in general and second and foreign language education in particular (Thomas, 2000). Also missing from the second and foreign language education literature is systematic discussion of PBL work that brings together representative work, identifying obvious gaps, and guiding the field toward future directions. This, first of its kind, volume bridges these obvious gaps through the original work of international scholars from Canada, Israel, Japan, Singapore, and the US.