This volume looks at the preparation of future critical language teachers in the face of an increasingly multilingual and transcultural contemporary world. This is seen through the lens of the collapse of Nation-State borders that crumble in the face of migration and the intense flow of languages that comes with it. It brings together international research that problematizes, theorizes, re-positions and re-conceptualizes myriad structural, systemic, ideological, political and pedagogical issues that intersect with the possibilities and impossibilities of the development of language teachers' agency. The volume examines the needs of linguistically diverse student populations and considers the socio-cultural and socio-political barriers that interfere with the exercise of teacher agency for social justice in language classrooms. It offers a theoretical and empirical overview of how language teacher education has addressed multilingualism and transculturalism in critical approaches in many complex countries in their diversity and/or postcolonial history, including Brazil, Qazaqstan, Scotland, and Thailand.

Modern education in Thailand started at the end of the nineteenth century under the impulse of King Chulalongkorn. Many scholars tracing back the evolution from traditional education to a modern education system emphasized the feeling of necessity that motivated this transformation. Wyatt (1969), Mead (2004) and Watson (1982) underlined the need for a modern administration, to handle the Siamese nation-state “as” the Western states, and in that respect, the key role played by education to structure the new Siam and to appear to the eyes of the world as civilized (Peleggi 2002). The shaping of a new education took place amidst strong political struggles. Siam needed to stand firm within the regional arena, swept by the winds of Western colonialism. Internally, King Chulalongkorn had to legitimize his power and to unify the kingdom by integrating satellite kingdoms into a wider space, the Siamese nation state. Education was vital for this mission as it would contribute not only to bringing state power into the provinces through state-paid teachers and government officials, but also to transmitting a whole nation-related imagery to the young generations. Giving rise to Thai-ness among the populations located at the margins of the kingdom was a tremendous ordeal. In the Southern part of the kingdom, population was mainly Muslim, spoke Malay and felt culturally closer to the Malay state (Dulyakasem 1991). In the Northern part, incorporating the Lanna kingdom and hill tribe populations into Siam proved not to be easy. Ideological, social and national values were introduced into education delivered to students, and with the implementation of the Compulsory Education Act of 1921, school attendance tied children and parents to the nation state and made them liable to it.

This is the third volume of a trilogy on English Language education in Asia within the Routledge Critical Studies in Asian Education. Put together by editors and contributors selected by Asia TEFL, this book provides a timely and critical review of the current trends in tertiary level English education in Asia. It foregrounds the developments and trends, policies and implementation, as well as research and practice. Written by ELT scholars and educational leaders, this book presents articles on China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. While the authors focus on their own local issues, providing an overview of the state of tertiary English teaching in their respective territories, they also provide insights from their successes and failures which can help inspire solutions to similar challenges faced internationally in the field. Chapters in the book include: • Heading toward the global standardization of English education in Korean universities • English in tertiary education in India: A Janus-faced perspective with special reference to University of Delhi • Developing English language skills in the Singapore higher education context • ELT at tertiary institutions in China: A developmental perspective This book will be valued by administrators, researchers and scholars interested in bilingualism, language policy and planning in higher education.