With the rapid progress of information and communication technology during recent
decades, a vast amount of knowledge has been spreading through our borderless world.
As the quantity and power of knowledge has increased greatly, it has thrust the world
into a knowledge-based economy as well as the knowledge-based society. With this
unprecedented global change, an ever increasing number of developed and developing
countries have been making great efforts to build up international cooperation and
networks in order to seek the ways to develop their own country politically,
economically and socially. In this trend of globalization, the most important language
being used among countries, institutions and individuals all over the world is the
English language. Therefore, English has come to be considered globally as the
international or global language. At the same time, the world trend has become
focused on internationalization in almost every area due to the challenges of global
competitiveness. Some have asserted that it is far from inevitable that the spread of
English will continue, however unstoppable it may appear at present, and educational
systems need to prepare for this eventuality (John E. Joseph, 2001), but all evidence in
recent years indicates that the English language education will be a critical priority for
education systems in most developing countries for many years to come.