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This book provides comprehensive coverage of language contact in classroom settings. A thorough analysis of the sources and implications of social “disadvantage” is presented first, since the nonstandard dialects that children bring with them to school – and the unfavourable perceptions of these dialects – have traditionally given rise to educational difficulties. The persistence of these perceptions is particularly highlighted. More general issues surrounding the range and implications of language attitudes are dealt with, as is the important “test case” of Black English. The book also discusses foreign-language teaching and learning, as well as the assumptions and intentions underpinning bilingual and multicultural education. Given its breadth and its style, this book should be of interest and value to all teachers, as well as to students and researchers concerned with any aspect of the social life of language.
The rapidly changing demographic composition of students in American (& other) schools poses an increasing challenge for teachers who increasingly are finding larger and larger numbers of students from diverse ethnolinguistic and racial backgrounds in their classes. School systems are beginning to understand the need to better prepare their teachers to understand and to draw upon the linguistic resources that students bring to the classroom. Language Diversity in the Classroom is an excellent book that should inform and stimulate discussion in teacher education programs. I recommend it enthusiastically.
John Edwards is a Professor of Psychology at St Francis Xavier University. His research interests are in language, identity and the many ramifications of their relationship. He has lectured and presented papers on this topic in some thirty countries. Professor Edwards is the editor of the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. He is the author of several books including Language and Identity (Cambridge, 2009) and Un mundo de lenguas (Aresta, 2009) as well as many articles, chapters and reviews.
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Discourse Analysis and its Discontents
Chapter 3: Disadvantage: A Brief Overview
Chapter 4: Disadvantage: The Genetic Case
Chapter 5: Disadvantage: The Environmental Case
Chapter 6: The Language Debate
Chapter 7: The Persistence of Linguistic Deficit
Chapter 8: Evaluative Reactions to the Language of Disadvantage
Chapter 9: Black English as Ebonics
Chapter 10: ‘Foreign’ Languages in the Classroom
Chapter 11: Multiculturalism and Multicultural Education
Chapter 12: Bilingualism: A Very Brief Overview
Chapter 13: Bilingual Education
Chapter 14: A Concluding Statement