The long shot

Susan Tomes: Reading online provides a short caffeine hit for the mind, whereas novel reading develops valuable habits of concentration and contemplation

Time for Britain to be taught some lessons

Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown, last month announced "a boost to English language learning, teaching and training facilities for people throughout the world". This sounded like good news for British ELT: a major policy commitment steered by the British Council after years of declining support.

Eagleton faces axe at Manchester

Terry Eagleton, Britain's leading Marxist literary critic, faces the axe at Manchester University. The institution is in the process of losing 650 jobs to clear a £30m debt

Dawn of the digital natives

If you believe a scary US report, reading is on the decline. But, says Steven Johnson, it completely fails to consider the amount that we do every day on our computers

In praise of … Martin Amis

Leader: A stylist with the trick of defamiliarising the familiar, Martin Amis is also a keen student of the public realm. His writing on Islamist terrorism has made him enemies; his opinions are sometimes cruder and shallower than the language that dresses them

In defence of the IGCSE

Katy Steinmetz: The English language is like anything else: before you can convincingly break the rules, you first must know them

Brown speaks out for English

Gordon Brown to spearhead trip to China and India by announcing radical plan to promote English language across the world

English for dummies

Aleksandra Lojek-Magdziarz: My expectations of the use of English by native speakers have been dashed: instead I find I have to dumb down my own language skills