ABSTRACT

The renowned and highly experienced editors of this book bring together the leading voices in contemporary English education under the banner of the International Federation for the Teaching of English (IFTE). The collected chapters here represent the very best of international writing on the teaching of English in the past decade.

The key issues and debates surrounding English teaching across the globe are discussed and analysed accessibly, and incorporate wide-ranging topics including:

• The impact of high stakes testing on teaching and learning;

• Addressing the needs of minority groups;

• The digitization of literature and new conceptions of text;
• Rewriting the canon;

• Dealing with curriculum change;
• "Best practices" in the teaching of English;
• The tension between ‘literacy’ and ‘English’;

• English and bilingual education;
• The impact of digital technologies on teaching and learning;
• Conceptions of English as a subject [secondary and tertiary];
• Bringing the critical into the English/Literacy classroom;
• The future of subject English;
• Empowering voices on the margins;

• Pre-service teacher education;

• The social networking English classroom.

 

This text looks at the changing face of subject English from the differing perspectives of policy makers, teacher educators, teachers and their students. It tackles some of the hard questions posed by technological advances in a global society, challenges conventional approaches to teaching and points to the emerging possibilities for a traditional school subject such as English in the face of rapid change and increasing societal expectations. Despite all of the converging political and technological threats, the authors of this engaging and insightful text portray an immense confidence in the ultimate worth of teaching and learning subject English.

chapter 1|9 pages

Introduction

English — looking ahead

part I|104 pages

Literacies and literatures

chapter 3|15 pages

Opportunities or constraints?

Making space

chapter 4|12 pages

Student, reader, critic, teacher

Issues and identities in post-16 English Literature

chapter 6|14 pages

Machines to think with?

e-books, Kindles and English teachers — the much prophesied Death of the Book revisited

chapter 8|9 pages

Rewriting the canon

Literature curricula text lists

chapter 9|13 pages

‘Personal works in progress'

Teaching reading in a digital age: towards an understanding of pedagogic practice

part II|95 pages

English teachers @ work

chapter 10|12 pages

The past

A ‘foreign country' worth visiting?

chapter 12|12 pages

Language as putty

Framing a relationship between grammar and writing

chapter 13|12 pages

English teachers, low SES students and intellectual challenge

Cases from Australia

chapter 15|10 pages

English educators as agents of change

How to ‘do change' differently in a complex world

chapter 16|11 pages

The North American Teacher Research Movement

The National Writing Project and the scholarship of teaching practice

part III|67 pages

New technologies, new practices

chapter 18|10 pages

Multiliteracies

An ‘app' for the Literacy Boomerang

chapter 19|12 pages

With rest … and time … and a little hope

Moving into virtual worlds through multimodal literacy forms

chapter 20|10 pages

You are what you read

Text selection and cultural capital in the (globalising) English classroom

chapter 22|10 pages

Implementation of digital technologies

Creating new conversations with students