I was on a Skype chat with Ken Beare of esl.about.com this afternoon, and he led me to this must-read research document English Next 2006. Researched and written by David Graddol, and published by the British Council, this is a follow-up of sorts to the well-known Future of English 1997 which rocked my world when I first read it so long ago. I haven’t read the new report yet but I managed a quick skim and scan and it looks most intriguing. I love the teaser on the British Council site: “Read English Next and find out why global English may mean the end of English as a foreign language” (as you can imagine this is what I scanned for!).

Ken’s got a new podcast site up named English Feedand his company site is Dialogue Consulting. And I posted on his project Tutopia a couple of months ago. Ken’s a busy guy!