This book explores discourses of foreign language education in Ireland through an ethnographic lens. Taking a critical approach to SLA, it locates students' language ideologies within wider discourses of language learning, such as discourses of gender and language learning and discourses of elite multilingualism. It also examines the role of the imagined identity in language learning investment in a world where English and a limited number of other 'global' languages dominate the foreign language learning experience. The ethnographic approach provides a unique insight into the way in which dominant discourses of identity, gender, and foreign language learning are both constructed and resisted in the institutional context, shaping our understanding of what it means to be a gendered being and what it means to be a language learner in a globalised world. This book will be of interest to postgraduate students and researchers in the fields of SLA and sociolinguistics, as well as language teachers and language policymakers.

This volume offers insights on language learning outside the classroom, or in the wild, where L2 users themselves are the driving force for language learning. The chapters, by scholars from around the world, critically examine the concept of second language learning in the wild. The authors use innovative data collection methods (such as video and audio recordings collected by the participants during their interactions outside classrooms) and analytic methods from conversation analysis to provide a radically emic perspective on the data. Analytic claims are supported by evidence from how the participants in the interactions interpret one another's language use and interactional conduct. This allows the authors to scrutinize the term wild showing what distinguishes L2 practices in our different datasets and how those practices differ from the L2 learner data documented in other more controlled settings, such as the classroom. We also show how our findings can feed back into the development of materials for classroom language instruction, and ultimately can support the implementation of usage-based L2 pedagogies. In sum, we uncover what it is about the language use in these contexts that facilitates developmental changes over time in L2-speakers' and their co-participants' interactional practices for language learning.

Teaching and Learning the English Language is a practical guide for anyone seeking to improve their teaching, whether through formal study or on their own. Richard Badger explores teaching English as a problem-solving activity in which teachers must address three fundamental questions: * what aspect of language do students need to learn; * how might they learn this particular aspect of language; * and how can teachers support their learning. Offering a solid, research-based approach along with sound practical advice, this book equips teachers with skills needed to analyse their own contexts and develop their practice. It covers: * Fundamentals of English language * Psychological and social learning processes * TESOL teaching methods and approaches * Lesson planning and classroom management * Language evaluation and assessment * Teaching pronunciation, spelling, grammar, vocabulary and discourse * Teaching listening, reading, writing and speaking * English teacher professional development Pedagogical features include chapter summaries, activities for students and key readings recommendations, and the book is also supported by online resources: video case studies, additional exercises and multiple choice quizzes. Including numerous international lesson examples and case studies, Teaching and Learning English Language is suitable for both trainee and practising teachers who speak English as a first, second or foreign language.

Imperialism may be over, but the political, economic and cultural subjugation of social life through English has only intensified. This book demonstrates how English has been newly constituted as a dominant language in post-market reform India through the fervent aspirations of non-elites and the zealous reforms of English Language Teaching experts. The most recent spread of English in India has been through low-fee private schools, which are perceived as dubious yet efficient. The book is an ethnography of mothering at one such low-fee private school and its neighboring state-funded school. It demonstrates that political economic transitions, experienced as radical social mobility, fuelled intense desire for English schooling. Rather than English schooling leading to social mobility, new experiences of mobility necessitated English schooling. At the same time, experts have responded to the unanticipated spread of English by transforming it from a second language to a first language, and earlier hierarchies have been produced anew as access to English democratized.

Language Policy beyond the State invites readers to (re-)consider the ways language policy is constituted, taken up, and researched if we look within and past the state. Contributors to this edited volume draw attention to language policy as always in the making, focusing on agency, on-the-ground practices, and ideologies. The chapters of the book reveal how simultaneous, and at times contradicting, language policies exist within a state and explore the complex roles played by families, businesses, educational institutions, and media in generating and appropriating these policies. By moving away from language policy analysis concerned primarily with how official state policies address well-defined language problems, some of the contributions of the volume highlight how the problems themselves can be ideological artifacts or are discursively constructed in language ideological debates that are provoked by changes in the geopolitical situation in the region. Using qualitative and descriptive research, the book uses Estonia as a setting to examine the ways historic and contemporary populations navigate language policies in both local and transnational spaces. As a whole, the collection speaks eloquently and powerfully to current efforts to understand and map the ways multiple institutions and individuals-not just the state-play an active role in forming and taking up language policies.

This book offers several insights into cross-cultural and multilingual learning, drawing upon recent research within two main areas: Language Studies and Multilingual Language Learning/Teaching. It places particular emphasis on the Polish learning environment and Poles abroad. Today's world is an increasingly complex network of cross-cultural and multilingual influences, forcing us to redefine our Selves to include a much broader perspective than ever before. The first part of the book explores attitudes toward multiculturalism in British political speeches, joking behaviour in multicultural working settings, culture-dependent aspects of taboos and swearing, and expressive language of the imprisoned, adding a diachronic perspective by means of a linguistic study of The Canterbury Tales. In turn, the studies in the second part focus on visible shifts in contemporary multilingualism research, learners' attitudes towards multiple languages they acquire, teachers' perspectives on the changing requirements related to multiculturalism, and immigrant brokers' professional experience in the UK.

This book brings together 13 original research papers that address emerging issues in the assessment of Chinese as a Second Language (CSL) in five major areas, including standards in CSL assessment; development of CSL tests; assessment of diverse knowledge and skills; computer-supported assessment; and CSL assessment in relation to instruction and teachers' assessment competence. It goes beyond the psychometric testing of Chinese and provides cutting-edge examinations of the interfaces of assessment with sociology of language, acquisition, pedagogy, and modern technologies, as well as teacher education. Given its unique features and broad range of topics, the book offers an intriguing and valuable resource, not only for scholars and researchers but also teacher educators and assessment practitioners who are directly or indirectly involved in CSL assessment.