Over the Memorial Day weekend, leaders in international education from all across the globe converged on Kansas City, MO to discuss trends and best practices in international education.

Among the nearly 7,000 attendees, nearly a third were from outside the US, according to the event organizers.

With all the countries and nationalities represented, you can imagine how many different languages one could hear riding the escalator!

But one thing many — if not most — attendees had in common was their understanding that English is quickly becoming the international communication currency.

This year, the creators and team behind Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE Academic) came together in London for a business meeting. During the kick-off event, a fascinating video was shown, entitled Shift Happens. There are now several versions of this video, each building on the theme of how quickly the world changes. (Also see the wiki about the presentation.)

Pearson wants to be at the forefront of these changes in education. That’s why we are constantly adapting our learning tools, the way we use technology and how we assess learning.

While at NAFSA 2010, we learned that educators, administrators and — probably most of all — teachers are all very excited about the opportunity to utilize PTE Academic to accurately measure the real-world English proficiency of their students.

Because if our students are going to be at the front of the next great Shift, they’ll need to communicate in English.