Author Description

Product Description Although both Britain and Canada have a history of bilingualism, postwar immigration has created a far greater degree of linguistic and cultural diversity than was previously the case. The World in a Classroom is a comparative study of how British and Canadian schools have adapted to the needs of multilingual populations. It draws both on published research and on new data collected in Ontario schools. It considers attitudes towards linguistic diversity and the various philosophies which have shaped responses to children from minority communities. Special attention is paid to the ways in which provision for children learning English in school has changed overtime: the ways in which both curriculum and classroom management have attempted to meet the needs of a multilingual population; and the organisation of community (or heritage) language teaching. The material conditions and organisation of schools in Canada and Britain are often very different. However, there are also many points of similarity between developments in the two countries and the authors make a powerful case for the pooling of ideas and resources. In a world where multilingual classrooms are an increasing reality, their observations and conclusions are relevant to many other educational settings. About the Author Viv Edwards is Professor of Language in Education at the University of Reading where she is also Director of the National Centre for Language and Literacy. She is editor of the international journal Language and Education and has researched and published widely in the areas of multilingualism and education. Her book on Multilingualism in the English-speaking World received the 2005 British Association for Applied Linguistics book award. She is also a fellow of the Royal Society for Arts.