English at the Core: Dialogue and Power in English Teaching (English, Language and Education)

by PeterGriffith (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1991

  $3.29

  In this book the theories and practices of English teaching are examined in the context of the problems and pressures of the 1990s. Transcripts of English lessons, both contemporary and dating from the recent past, are analyzed and compared, and the teacher ideologies of transmitting skills, or culture, or supporting individual development, are compared with actual practice in classrooms, with results that may surprise many practitioners. Griffith draws particularly on the work of Michel Faucault and Mikhail Bakhtin but these theoretical approaches are brought close to hoem in chapters which examine the development of English as a distinct school subject in England and Wales, and turn a critical eye on the documents establishing the scope and pattern of the subject as prescribed by the National Curriculum. Treated as texts themselves, these documents are contrasted with earlier reports into the teaching of the subject, and the conclusions which this book draws are in many ways as unexpected as those arising form the scrutiny of individual lessons. Designed to inform and stimulate both new and experienced teachers of English, and all those concerned with the future role of the subject in schools and elsewhere, this book provides a concise and illuminating introduction to new areas of thinking which can redefine the place of English in the curriculum, and reformulate the way in which it is taught.