Learning English at School

Identity, Socio-material Relations and Classroom Practice

By (author) Dr. Kelleen Toohey

Publication date:

25 May 2018

Publisher

Multilingual Matters

Dimensions:

234x156mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781788920087

This fully revised edition provides a comprehensive discussion of how insights and concepts from new materialism and posthumanism might be used in investigating second language learning and teaching in classrooms. Alongside the sociocultural and poststructural perspectives discussed in the first edition, this new book presents insights from new materialism on identity, second language learning and pedagogical practices. This application of new theory deepens our understanding of how minority language background children learn English in the context of their classrooms. The author comprehensively explains the new materiality perspectives and suggests how research from this perspective might provide new insights on second language learning and teaching in classrooms. The book is unique in analysing empirical classroom data from a sociocultural, but also a new materiality perspective, and has the potential to change our understandings of research and pedagogical practices.

In a world that needs new visions and ethics, this book stimulates important and original conversations. Theoretically grounded in new materialism Toohey rethinks classrooms as assemblages, joining the human and non-human as we take rides with pens on paper, follow fingers on iPads, and play with objects. This is a generous open-ended critical inquiry into the lives of children, complete with research stories from which we can all learn.