10 December 2010

Falling Demand for English

One of the interesting papers at the ESEA conference in Macau was by David Graddol. It included a graph for projected falling demand for English language classes in the near future (from page 99 of his 2006 book English Next):In recent years, the demand for English language classes has been mushrooming, but this is projected to decline as an increasing proportion of young children learn English in school and do not need to attend classes later in life.

David Graddol had some stunning animated graphics in his presentation. I asked him how he managed to get them, and he told them he coded them himself in Javascript. I wish I could write code like that!