Language and education: learning and teaching in society

The last two decades have seen a good deal of work in educational linguistics, which has created a deeper understanding of how language works in different varieties of discourse and what a teacher needs to know for engaging successfully in language education. In this sense, the focus has been largely on instructional discourse - i.e., what is to be taught. The chapters of this book attempt to widen the field by focussing on who is being taught. After all, the true active element in the processes of education is the learner. Children have already acquired specific ways of learning, long before they enter the classroom, and in pluralistic societies learning styles vary systematically across communities. This book argues on the one hand the need to attend to the different voices in the classroom, and on the other to encourage an attitude of enquiry which creates awareness of the power of discourse in maintaining and/or changing societies.