All too often, schools make decisions about language without a proper understanding of the issues involved. Language Awareness at School addresses this issue by exploring a range of topics related to language, helping teachers to make informed choices about how to support their students in becoming more confident speakers and writers.
What do TESOL teachers actually teach? What do they know about language, about English and the ways it is used in the world? How do they view themselves and their work? How is TESOL perceived as a profession and as a discipline? How can teachers make the most of the available resources? Can global English really deliver what it seems to promise? These are some of the questions explored in Rethinking TESOL in Diverse Global Settings, a book which examines what we mean when we talk about English language teaching and what we understand the job of an English language teacher to be. Covering diverse teaching environments, from China to Latin America and the Middle East, and from elementary school to university, the authors take a critical look at TESOL by focusing on the actual substance of the subject, language, and attitudes towards it. While recognizing the often precarious status of TESOL teachers, the book pulls no punches in challenges them, native and non-native speakers of English alike, to become more ambitious in their aims, positioning themselves not as mere skills providers, but as language experts, specialists in their subject, members of legitimate academic discipline. Only then, the authors argue, will TESOL teachers and their work be taken seriously and their expertise recognized--back cover.