English - a Changing Medium for Education

In this volume a range of authors from different international contexts argue that the notion of communicative competence in English, hitherto largely referenced to metropolitan native-speaker norms, has to be expanded to take account of diverse contexts of use for a variety of purposes. It also discusses the popular belief that language and literacy should simply be regarded as a technical 'skill' which confers universal benefits and that it should be replaced with a social practice view that recognises situated variations and diversity. This volume, we believe, provides a reference point for extended research and practice in these areas that will be of interest to wide range of people engaged in language and literacy education.

Constant Leung is Professor of Educational Linguistics in the School of Education, Communication and Society, King’s College London. His research interests include academic literacies, additional/second language teaching and assessment, language policy, and multilingualism. He is co-editor of Language Assessment Quarterly, editor of research issues of TESOL Quarterly, and serves as a member of the editorial boards of Language and Education and the Modern Language Journal. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (UK). His work in developing the English as an Additional Language Assessment Framework for Schools (funded by the Bell Foundation) won the 2018 British Council ELTons International Award for Innovation.

Brian V Street is Emeritus Professor of Language in Education at King's College, London University and Visiting Professor of Education in the Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania. He has a commitment to linking ethnographic-style research on the cultural dimension of language and literacy with contemporary practice in education and in development. Over the past 25 years he has undertaken anthropological field research and been consultant to projects in these fields in countries of both the North and South (e.g. Nepal, S. Africa, India, USA, UK). He has published 18 books and 120 scholarly papers.