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Description:
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The last two decades have seen a good deal of work in educational linguistics,
which has created a deeper understanding of how language works in different
varieties of discourse and what a teacher needs to know for engaging
successfully in language education. In this sense, the focus has been largely
on instructional discourse – i.e., what is to be taught. The chapters of this book
attempt to widen the field by focussing on who is being taught. After all, the
true active element in the processes of education is the learner. Children have
already acquired specific ways of learning, long before they enter the
classroom, and in pluralistic societies learning styles vary systematically
across communities. This book argues on the one hand the need to attend to
the different voices in the classroom, and on the other to encourage an attitude
of enquiry which creates awareness of the power of discourse in maintaining
and/or changing societies.
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