Learning English and Chinese as Foreign Languages: Sociocultural and Comparative Perspectives (New Perspectives on Language and Education, 74) - Softcover

Lin, Wen-Chuan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1788925130 ISBN 13: 9781788925136

Publisher: Multilingual Matters, 2019

Synopsis

Learning English and Chinese is becoming increasingly important to the prospects of young people. This book compares English as a Foreign Language teaching in Taiwan with Chinese as a Foreign Language education in England in order to highlight how classroom activities are embedded within multiple settings, including ethnic or other social group cultures, family and community resources and school visions or goals. The book illustrates how in Taiwan different ethnic groups recognise, access and value English language learning to varying extents. Its findings illuminate why some ethnic groups are highly motivated to learn English and are able to gain privileged economic positions in the job market. In England, access to Chinese is marked by social class, and the book argues that this could augment an ‘educational apartheid’ that already exists in language teaching in secondary schools, thereby exacerbating existing inequality.

About this title

About the Author

Wen-Chuan Lin is Associate Professor, Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages, Taiwan. His research interests include intercultural studies, computer-mediated language learning and foreign language learning issues from the perspectives of Vygotskian Sociocultural Theory. He is co-editor of Internationalizing English Language Education in Globalized Taiwan (with I.J. Weng and R. Godwin-Jones, 2018, Tung Hua).

Edition details

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1788925130
• ISBN 13: 9781788925136
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 232