Leung C., Street B.V. (Eds.) English a changing medium for education

Multlingual Matters, Bristol, 2012, 154 pages, ISBN: 9781847697721, 978-1-84769-771-4New perspectives on language and educationThe widespread use of English as a preferred medium for schooling in a variety of educational contexts in different parts of the world has given rise to questions about what counts as ‘Standard English’ and ‘literacy’. In relation to both of these questions, the dominant focus in educational
contexts has been to assume that English, both spoken and written, is a stable and uniform phenomenon and that teaching has simply to ignore,
or to marginalize, everyday or ‘popular’ uses. However, recent debates in the fields of English (as a school and university subject), English as a
Lingua Franca, English as an Additional/Second Language, multimodal communication World Englishes, and in the fields of New Literacy Studies
and Academic Literacies, for instance, have shown that English, whether spoken or written, is not a single monolithic language in terms of genre,
lexicogrammatical properties and pragmatic conventions of use. Rather, participants in the specific contexts of both community activities and also
of classroom curricula can shape both form and function of English in decisive ways, particularly in the light of the increasing use of interactive
digital communication devices. This complex view of English is clearly an important issue for language education policy and practice in different
world locations.It is also sometimes assumed that English is a set of neutral linguistic resources and that the adoption of English as a medium for schooling is based
on good common sense – an obvious thing to do, so to speak. The choice of English as a preferred medium is, however, a deliberate act involving value judgments and ideological and political principles, whether one is talking about the education of ethnolinguistic minority students in English-speaking countries, or the adoption of English as the official school medium in places such as Singapore or South Africa, where English is one of the many local/ official languages. Recent studies in bi/multilingual interaction in school and elsewhere suggest that the role and utility of English in education has to be understood with reference to the presence, the conferred status and the use of other languages in school and in wider society.Introduction: English in the Curriculum – Norms and Practices
What Counts as English?
The Rise and Rise of English: The Politics of Bilingual Education in Australia’s Remote Indigenous Schools
(Re)Writing English: Putting English in Translation
Multilingual and Multimodal Resources in Genre-based Pedagogical Approaches to L2 English Content Classrooms
Multimodal Literacies and Assessment: Uncharted Challenges in the English Classroom
Beyond Labels and Categories in English Language Teaching: Critical Reflections on Popular Conceptualizations