Overview

The book argues for the incorporation of Critical Language Awareness (CLA) in English language teaching and more broadly within mainstream education. The conception of CLA draws together significant areas of recent sociolinguistic research, reflecting dramatic changes in the global environment and the consequent impacts on English language teaching. Teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and language attitudes are discussed in relation to these changing sociolinguistic conditions, seeking to address teachers’ principal concerns. English language teachers are on the front line in finding a balance between students’ expectations, institutional requirements and the needs of neo-liberal societies demanding a flexible, transmigratory, multilingual, English-speaking workforce. To investigate the impact of these changing conditions, this book explores the diversity of English language teachers’ cognitions. Data are examined from focus groups across China, Turkey and the UK, including 63 teachers from 16 countries, speaking a total of 21 different languages. The diversity of the participants in terms of their language background, teaching experience and teaching qualifications enables identification of core factors across the groups in how they engage with challenges in their everyday teaching practices.

Full Product Details

9781350458130

Table of Contents

Reviews

The evocative classroom accounts of critical language awareness in action are what make this book a must-read. Narratives about SLA meta-language being applied in action are a powerful tool to explore the theory-to-praxis divide that challenges us all as educators. Linguistic justice is for all, and this book helps educators learn to apply it within everyday interactions with students. * Marie Webb, Department of Linguistics, UC Santa Barbara, US *

Author Information

Robert Weekly is Assistant Professor in the School of Education and English at the University of Nottingham Ningbo, China.

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