Edited by Dr Philip Powell-Davies and Professor Paul Gunashekar
This volume is a collection of papers derived from the Third International Teacher Educators Conference held in Hyderabad, India from 16 - 18 March 2013 on the theme English Language Teacher Education in a Diverse Environment.
The book explores a broad range of issues from the challenges of teaching and learning languages in large, diverse classrooms to the implications this raises for the training and continuing professional development of teachers.
Multilingualism is also addressed together with an examination of the importance of mother-tongue education. This is examined against the cultural context in which education operates and the enormous opportunities and challenges this poses. The inter-dependence of national and local identity, language policy, the use of languages in educations systems, the socio-economic pressures to learn English, and the interests and concerns of parents and communities is clearly delineated in this publication.
The cognitive, linguistic and cultural impacts of learning English on the individual and the community are immense, as several of the papers in this collection make clear. The rise of English and its place in the school curriculum does not easily encourage consensus about its potential benefits and this book does not shy away from exploring these.
This publication is free to download.