English Language Teaching in its Social Context

Christopher N. Candlinand Neil MercerINTRODUCTIONWhen Macquarie University, in Sydney, Australia, and The Open University, in MiltonKeynes, England, decided to collaborate on the development of new curriculum materialsfor study at Master’s level, the partnership brought together The Open University’sexperience in open learning in the field of education, and Macquarie’s experience in appliedlinguistics and language education, backed by its own existing distance learning programme.The collection of articles in this book and its two companion volumes are one result of thatcollaboration. While the edited collections have been designed as one part of an overall studyprogramme, complemented by other learning and study materials comprising study guidesand accompanying video and audio recordings, they stand alone as extensive yet focusedcollections of articles which address key contemporary issues in English language teachingand applied linguistics.A major concern in editing these three volumes has been the desire to present Englishlanguage teaching (ELT) in a variety of specific institutional, geographic and cultural contexts.Hence, as far as possible across the three volumes, we have attempted to highlight debate,discussion and illustration of current issues from different parts of the English-speaking andEnglish-using world, including those where English is not learned as a first language. In doingthis we recognize that English language teaching comprises a global community of teachersand learners in a range of social contexts.It is English LanguogeTeaching in its Social Context which is the title of this second volumein the series, and it will be useful to decide early on what we mean by this term. We havea number of interpretations and perspectives in mind. One that is central is that of theclassroom context in which interactions betwecn teachers and learners have an effect on thenature and quality of language learning. No language teaching and learning takes placehowever, in a classroom which is isolated from the world of experiences and personalengagements and investments of learners outside the classroom itself. In that sense the widersociol context of life outside the classroom has an important effect on what takes place in theseinteractions between learners and teachers, and among learners. For many learners, thecontexts outside the classroom are not only where they make use of the English they havelearned in class, but they can also constitute a powerful incentive (or disincentive) for furtherlearning. Moreover, it is not only the contexts of learning and using English that areimportant. We need also to understand the professional context of teachers’ practicesthemselves within this interactive process of classroom teaching-and-learning. Finally, weneed to take account of the cocio-cultural context by which communicating partners in this