Abstract

A critical reality of contemporary education in a globalised world is the growing cultural, racial and linguistic diversity in schools and the issues involved in educating increasing numbers of students who are still learning the dominant language. This poses extraordinary challenges for second and foreign language teachers in many countries, where such students must engage with the mainstream curriculum in a new language. What do these increasingly plurilingual and multicultural classrooms look like? And how do language teachers address the challenges of such diverse classrooms? This book brings together a group of well-recognised language education scholars who present their research in a range of international settings. They focus on the key areas of pedagogy, language policy and curriculum and exemplify new research directions in the field.

Jennifer Miller is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education at Monash University where she teaches postgraduate TESOL courses. Her research and publications are in the areas of language acquisition and identity, the sociocultural framing of language pedagogy, and teacherâ??s work. Her book, Audible Difference: ESL and social identity (Multilingual Matters, 2003) explores the politics of speaking and identity for immigrant students in Australian high schools. Her current research concerns low literacy refugee students in the high school mainstream, and preservice teachers from non-English speaking backgrounds.

Alex Kostogriz is Associate Professor in TESOL in the School of Education, Deakin University. He has published widely on issues of professional practice and ethics of English language educators, teacher professional identity and learning, transcultural literacy and pedagogy of Thirdspace. He has co-edited Dimensions of Professional Learning (2007), special issues of Mind, Culture & Activity and English Teaching: Practice & Critique on learning in multicultural conditions.

Margaret Gearon is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education at Monash University. She specialises in language teacher education at both preservice and inservice levels, curriculum and assessment in foreign and community (heritage) languages, and bilingual education. Her research interests are in immersion education, code-switching in the foreign language classroom, and how the knowledge and beliefs of preservice languages teachers are manifested in their classroom practices. She is currently project director for the design of a teacher training course for community languages teachers in Australia.

This book raises a range of philosophical and pedagogical issues of fundamental importance to those working in linguistically and culturally classrooms everywhere and deserves to become a key text for teacher education courses.

I commend this book not only for its attention to the complexities of preparing teachers for culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms, but also for opening up new ways of framing language education and teacher education in a globalised world.