ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of the evolution of foreign language education from an atypical perspective, focusing on its relation with the political and economic transformation of capitalism in recent decades. Specifically, the chapter examines the Council of Europe’s enormous impact on how languages are learned today with special attention to two documents created and published by this institution, namely The Threshold Level and the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. There is an explanation of how Communicative Language Teaching was born in a moment of sweeping economic and political transformations, with an increase in the mobility of capital, goods and people. This overview also includes a discussion of how for a number of reasons English Language Teaching (ELT) gained the status of a pacesetter for all other languages and how to this day it influences developments in the teaching of all languages worldwide. A principal argument of this chapter is that in recent decades we are living in a time of rapid standardization, centralization and homogenization of foreign language teaching and textbook design, which have been developed in accord with the mercantilist spirit of neoliberalism that extends to all spheres of contemporary life.
