China has become the world's largest English learning society, and China's decisions in relation to English will directly affect its fortunes into the future. This unique volume explores the prospects of English in relation to the debates on identity and cultural values that mass English teaching in China have stimulated.

Joseph Lo Bianco is Professor of Language and Literacy Education and Associate Dean (Global Relations) at the Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne. He is author of Australiaâ€(TM)s first comprehensive language policy, the National Policy on Languages, 1987. In 2007 he produced a Special Issue of the journal Language Policy entitled The Emergence of Chinese.

Jane Orton is an Honorary Senior Fellow in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne, where she has researched, taught and supervised for many years in the area of international English, language teaching and culture, and nonverbal communication.

Gao Yihong is a professor in the English Department, School of Foreign Languages, Peking University, and Director of The Association of Chinese Sociolinguistics. Her major research interest lies in the social psychology and social context of language learning.