Language Learning in the Multicultural Classroom

This book provides educators and teacher trainees with a basis upon which to develop teaching and learning methodologies that accommodate the multicultural classroom. A number of new perspectives are scrutinized, among them English as an International Language, Mid-Atlantic English, and Euro-English. The volume begins with a survey of the English language. Here, standard language ideologies and traditional teaching and learning practices, it is argued, are found to be obsolete because of the advent of Europeanization and globalization. Alternative language ideologies which reveal how conventional foreign-language teaching methodologies impede rather than promote the acquisition of intercultural competence are then investigated. Novel conceptualizations of language are presented which bring pluralism and multiculturalism center stage. The final chapter provides readers with guidelines and educational methodologies that serve the interests and needs of a diversified classroom. In all of the deliberation provided in this volume, there is a focus on the unique learning conditions in Sweden as well as in the European Union. Teachers and teacher trainees will find this volume to be a valuable tool in their efforts to devise a foundation for the teaching of languages of wider communication which is designed to accommodate todays adiverse learning environments.