Students enrolled for this programme study through the medium of English and are exposed to a range of cross-cultural and sociolinguistic issues in an attempt to raise awareness with regard to multilingualism while participating in the exchange of international perspectives. She was also involved with the doctoral cohort that met each week.

The invitation followed after Prof Kris van de Poel — the recipient of several international awards for her work in applied linguistics and curriculum and syllabus design — had heard a presentation on Classroom English by Prof Evans at a South African conference in 2015. She had noticed similarities with one of her projects; both projects aimed at equipping the target group with the appropriate English and effective communication skills relevant to their working environment. In both cases, the workers and teachers are generally not mother tongue speakers of English, yet are required to operate in circumstances which require high levels of proficiency in this language. Both environments work with people who have particular needs, and emotions are integral to the interaction. Incorrect diagnosis or incorrect concept-formation can have dire, long-term consequences.

Prof Evans engaged with colleagues from centres responsible for the placement of student teachers and those involved with the professional development of in-service teachers. She was also able to visits three schools; two in Belgium and one in the Netherlands where she witnessed multilingual classes being taught in Dutch. She also gave a public lecture on the challenges faced by South African teachers in the multilingual classroom. This topic has become an international agenda item as language debates rage across the globe and the dynamics of classrooms change considerably as globalisation and refugee-related migration increase.