Language teaching and its contexts

The title of this new journal provides opportunity to review the many contexts which need tobe taken into account in reflecting upon foreign language teaching. These contexts include theeducational, the fact that much language teaching takes place within general educational andoften compulsory educational settings and institutions. Learners thus encounter foreignlanguages alongside other languages – their language of the home, the official language of thecountry, languages of minorities and others – and this needs to be part of the thinking aboutlearning and teaching. Furthermore, since language is the tool for learning throughout life andespecially in educational institutions, where the languages of other subjects are languages inthemselves which learners have to learn if they are to be successful in education, teachers ofall subjects need to be aware of language as the tool of learning. Yet another issue is therelationship of language teaching with citizenship education and the development of‘intercultural citizenship’. The title of the journal also refers to ‘research’ and here too there ispotential for reflection on the modes and paradigms of research which are relevant toinvestigating language teaching and learning. Distinctions of quantitative and qualitativeresearch are misleading and need to be reviewed. The higher order distinctions are betweenresearch which seeks explanation, that which seeks understanding and that which involvesadvocacy.

Language teaching and its contexts Keywords:

teaching contexts , language in the curriculum , national languages , minority languages , intercultural citizenship , research paradigms