Developing Critical Languaculture Pedagogies in Higher Education

Theory and Practice

By (author) Adriana Raquel Díaz

Publication date:

17 September 2013

Publisher

Multilingual Matters

Dimensions:

210x148mm
6x8"

ISBN-13: 9781783090358

Despite widespread agreement about the need to develop interculturally competent graduates, there is a lack of agreement about how this goal may be achieved in practice. This is significant as universities around the world, particularly in English-speaking countries, have espoused an interculturally-aware vision for their future graduates and turned to language education, as an inherently intercultural activity, to expose students to a world which is linguistically and culturally different from their own. This book focuses on narrowing the gap between the often conflicting theoretical and practical imperatives faced by language teachers in an internationalised higher education context. It does so by providing comprehensive conceptual discussions of emerging critical intercultural language pedagogies as well as empirical accounts and case studies from the frontline.

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

PART I – THE THEORY/PRACTICE GAP IN LANGUAGE AND CULTURE PEDAGOGIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Chapter 1 – Stumbling Blocks to Bridging the Theory/Practice Gap

Chapter 2 – From Stumbling Blocks into Building Blocks

PART II – THEORY VS. PRACTICE AND THE REALM OF POSSIBILITY

Chapter 3 – Case Studies of Curricular Innovation

Chapter 4 – The Good, the Bad and the Feasible

PART III – BRIDGING THE GAP WITHOUT FALLING INTO THE PRECIPICE

Chapter 5 - Articulating the Feasible with Sustainable Innovation

Conclusion - Prospects for a Field in Transition

The book is reader-friendly and thus, capable of attracting and holding readers’ attention. Moreover, it is a book written for quite a wide readership, including scholars of applied linguistics and language teaching, language teachers, language curriculum designers as well as students of linguistics. In closing, I have no hesitation to suggest this book to anyone who is interested in language and culture teaching, particularly in tertiary education irrespective of their context of study and work.