Educators are at the epicenter of language policy in education. This book explores how they interpret, negotiate, resist, and (re)create language policies in classrooms. Bridging the divide between policy and practice by analyzing their interconnectedness, it examines the negotiation of language education policies in schools around the world, focusing on educators’ central role in this complex and dynamic process. Each chapter shares findings from research conducted in specific school districts, schools, or classrooms around the world and then details how educators negotiate policy in these local contexts. Discussion questions are included in each chapter. A highlighted section provides practical suggestions and guiding principles for teachers who are negotiating language policies in their own schools.

Educators are at the epicenter of language policy in education. This book explores how they interpret, negotiate, resist, and (re)create language policies in classrooms. Bridging the divide between policy and practice by analyzing their interconnectedness, it examines the negotiation of language education policies in schools around the world, focusing on educators' central role in this complex and dynamic process.Each chapter shares findings from research conducted in specific school districts, schools, or classrooms around the world and then details how educators negotiate policy in.

Can I Teach That? Negotiating Taboo Language and Controversial Topics in the Language Arts Classroom is a collection of stories, strategies, advice, and documents collected for teachers who are using or plan to use materials or implement policies they know may be controversial. It is for any teacher dedicated to engaging their students in the complex, challenging, and rewarding activities of reading and writing, for any teacher committed to speaking honestly with students. For any teacher, period. Because when we decide to work with young people, when we commit to sharing books and ideas that engage their hearts and minds, when we strive to get adolescents to think critically and write honestly, we open ourselves up to suspicion and critique from someone, somewhere, no matter how above reproach we feel our materials and strategies are. Few language arts teachers will experience a full-blown challenge to the content of their curriculum, but many may self-censor or suffer through awkward and challenging conversations with colleagues, administrators, parents, and other members of their community. This book is for those times when teachers are called on to defend and legitimize their use of controversial material in their classroom––material that they know reflects students’ reality, even as it makes adults uncomfortable and fearful about their inability to protect children from that very reality.

This book presents the forefront of research in the emerging field of family language policy. This is the first volume to explore the link between family language policy, practice and management in the light of state and community language policy in more than 20 ethno-linguistic communities worldwide. Contributions by leading scholars from eight countries and three continents offer insights in how family language policy might be interpreted from various theoretical perspectives, using innovative methodologies. In particular, the authors present novel data on successful family language practices such as faith-related literacy activities and homework sessions, as well as management, including prayer, choice of bilingual education, and links with mainstream and complementary learning, which permit the realization of language ideology within three contexts: immigrant families, inter-marriage families, and minority and majority families in conflict-ridden societies.

This book explores how high-stakes tests mandated by No Child Left Behind have become de facto language policy in U.S. schools, detailing how testing has shaped curriculum and instruction, and the myriad ways that tests are now a defining force in the daily lives of English Language Learners and the educators who serve them.

Negotiating Academic Literacies: Teaching and Learning Across Languages and Cultures is a cross-over volume in the literature between first and second language/literacy. This anthology of articles brings together different voices from a range of publications and fields and unites them in pursuit of an understanding of how academic ways of knowing are acquired. The editors preface the collection of readings with a conceptual framework that reconsiders the current debate about the nature of academic literacies. In this volume, the term academic literacies denotes multiple approaches to knowledge, including reading and writing critically. College classrooms have become sites where a number of languages and cultures intersect. This is the case not only for students who are in the process of acquiring English, but for all learners who find themselves in an academic situation that exposes them to a new set of expectations. This book is a contribution to the effort to discover ways of supporting learning across languages and cultures--and to transform views about what it means to teach and learn, to read and write, and to think and know. Unique to this volume is the inclusion of the perspectives of writers as well as those of teachers and researchers. Furthermore, the contributors reveal their own struggles and accomplishments as they themselves have attempted to negotiate academic literacies. The chronological ordering of articles provides a historical perspective, demonstrating ways in which issues related to teaching and learning across cultures have been addressed over time. The readings have consistency in terms of quality, depth, and passion; they raise important philosophical questions even as they consider practical classroom applications. The editors provide a series of questions that enable the reader to engage in a generative and exciting process of reflection and inquiry. This book is both a reference for teachers who work or plan to work with diverse learners, and a text for graduate-level courses, primarily in bilingual and ESL studies, composition studies, English education, and literacy studies.

This insightful book offers a critical stance on contemporary views of international students and challenges the way those involved address the important issues at hand.

Describes a method of negotiation that isolates problems, focuses on interests, creates new options, and uses objective criteria to help two parties reach an agreement.

This volume inserts the place of the local in theorizing about language policies and practices in applied linguistics. It is unique in focusing specifically on the outcomes of globalization in and among the communities affected by these changes.

This book is about the policy-practice praxis in English language education, and draws on research from a diverse range of under-explored international settings to showcase the importance of contextual realities on how policy and practice interact. The case studies covered in the volume come from five continents (Africa, Europe, Asia, and South and North America) and cover 11 countries in total. The authors cover a wide range of themes and identify a number of issues at the interface between policy and practice. In some cases they also highlight local initiatives for navigating these issues, providing contextually-grounded guidance and experience which will be of use to teachers and teacher trainers in other settings. This book will be of interest to policy makers, EMI researchers, ELT practitioners, teacher trainers and trainees, and the broader Applied Linguistics research community.