Challenges And Opportunities In Language Education

Applied Linguistics is a field of academic enquiry that deals with the theoretical and empirical investigation of real issues which focus on language. These issues include aspects of linguistics, first or second language acquisition, literacy, language disorders, foreign language learning and teaching, bilingual education, linguistic discrimination, and language policy, among others. New approaches, new theoretical concepts and new methods are a prerequisite for dealing with particular educational issues, and, as such, this book focuses on the challenges and opportunities that emerge from this. It brings together selected presentations given at the LIF2014 conference, which took place in Antalya, Turkey. The main focus of this event was to reflect the internationality of the English language by drawing academicians, researchers, teachers and educational authorities from all over the world and providing them with the opportunity to exchange an interdisciplinary dialogue on the theoretical as well as purely practical implications of Applied Linguistics and ELT.

Addressing a wide range of issues in applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, and multilingualism, this volume focuses on language users, the ‘people.’ Making creative connections between existing scholarship in language policy and contemporary theory and research in other social sciences, authors from around the world offer new critical perspectives for analyzing language phenomena and language theories, suggesting new meeting points among language users and language policy makers, norms, and traditions in diverse cultural, geographical, and historical contexts. Identifying and expanding on previously neglected aspects of language studies, the book is inspired by the work of Elana Shohamy, whose critical view and innovative work on a broad spectrum of key topics in applied linguistics has influenced many scholars in the field to think “out of the box” and to reconsider some basic commonly held understandings, specifically with regard to the impact of language and languaging on individual language users rather than on the masses.

"This book considers the role of language education in a rapidly changing world. Drawing on their extensive experience in language education, the authors consider how students might be supported in developing the language awareness and competences they need in order to participate fully and confidently in our increasingly diverse societies"--

This edited collection challenges the perceptions of disciplinary, linguistic, geographical and ideological borders that run across language education. By highlighting commonalities and tracing connections between diverse sub-fields that have traditionally been studied separately, the book shows how the perspectives of practitioners and researchers working in diverse areas of language education can mutually inform each other. It consists of three thematic parts: Part I outlines the field of language education and challenges its definition by highlighting additional theoretical constructs that have tended to be viewed as separate from language education. Part II investigates curricular boundaries, showing how the language-learning curriculum can be enriched by connections with other curricular areas. Lastly, Part III looks into the challenges and opportunities associated with language education against the backdrop of globalisation.

Starting from the key idea that learners and teachers bring diverse linguistic knowledge and resources to education, this book establishes and explores the concept of the ‘multilingual turn’ in languages education and the potential benefits for individuals and societies. It takes account of recent research, policy and practice in the fields of bilingual and multilingual education as well as foreign and second language education. The chapters integrate theory and practice, bringing together researchers and practitioners from five continents to illustrate the effects of the multilingual turn in society and evaluate the opportunities and challenges of implementing multilingual curricula and activities in a variety of classrooms. Based on the examples featured, the editors invite students, teachers, teacher educators and researchers to reflect on their own work and to evaluate the relevance and applicability of the multilingual turn in their own contexts.

This book is a reflective account of the work of the European Centre for Modern Languages, Graz, during its first medium-term programme, which lasted from 2000 to 2003.It presents some of the major current issues in language education that were dealt with during this programme and provides insight into the way the projects run by the ECML tried to address these issues and to develop practical, usable approaches to dealing with them.

Through case studies from around the world, this book illustrates the opportunities and challenges facing families negotiating the issues of language maintenance and language learning in the home. Every family living in a bi/multilingual environment faces the question of what language(s) to speak with their children and must make a decision, consciously or otherwise, about these issues. Exploring links between language policy in the home and wider society in a range of diverse settings, the contributors utilize various research tools, including interviews, questionnaires, observations, and archival document analysis, to explore linguistic ideologies and practices of family members in the home, illuminating how these are shaped by macro-level societal processes.