Policies and Practice in Language Learning and Teaching: 20th-century Historical Perspectives

This book brings together studies from Georgia, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, South Korea, and the UK which explore links between policy and practice in language teaching in the twentieth century. The 14 contributions set out to expand the remit of ‘grounded history’ within the field of History of Language Learning and Teaching (HoLLT) by focusing on language teaching policies and linking these to practices and to contexts, situating policy formulation in particular contexts on the one hand, and exploring the relationship between policy and practice on the other. In this sense, the book shows how the theories, policy pronouncements, curricula, textbooks, and overall teaching approaches which tend to feature in most histories of language teaching always emerge from particular, researchable contexts, and, in the other direction, are interpreted and responded to in practice, again, in particular contexts. In this way, it hopes to contribute a context-based perspective that highlights diversity of practices, in opposition to received views that language teaching methodology is ‘universal’ and context-free.

Sabine Doff has been Full Professor of English Language Education at the Department of Language and Literary Studies, University of Bremen, Germany since 2009. Her main interests cover the historiography of language education in and beyond Europe, curriculum studies, culture and cultural learning in the language classroom, inclusive language education and content and language integrated learning.

Richard Smith is a Professor of English Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics at the University of Warwick, UK. He is the founder and joint coordinator of the International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA) Research Network on History of Language Learning and Teaching, and he has published widely in this field (including, with N. Mclelland, The History of Language Learning and Teaching (3 volumes, Legenda, 2018) and, with T. Giesler, Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching: Historical Perspectives (Benjamins, in press).