1 - Valorizing Practice in Twentieth-century Language Learning and Teaching

Summary

Building on exchanges among scholars in different countries which have been developing in recent years in the field of History of Language Learning and Teaching (HoLLT), this book brings together studies from Georgia, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, South Korea, and the UK which explore links between policy and practice in language teaching in the twentieth century. The book sets out to expand the remit of ‘grounded history’ within the field of HoLLT by focusing on twentieth-century language teaching policies and linking these to practices and to contexts, situating policy formulation in particular contexts on the one hand, and exploring the relationship between policy and practice on the other. In this sense, it shows how the theories, policy pronouncements, curricula, textbooks, and overall teaching approaches which tend to feature in most histories of language teaching always emerge from particular, researchable contexts, and, in the other direction, are interpreted and responded to in practice, again, in particular contexts. In this way, we hope to contribute a context-based perspective that highlights diversity of practices, in opposition to received views that language teaching methodology is ‘universal’ and context-free.

Reconsidering the Value Given to Theory and Policy in the History of Language Education

In editing this volume, we have therefore had four main goals in mind:

Firstly, we would like to continue to help build international, interlingual, intercultural and interdisciplinary perspectives in developing the field of HoLLT by bringing together specialists from a range of different countries, languages, and disciplines. A second aim is to develop an enhanced appreciation of the role that context has played in the formulation of policy in the twentieth century history of language learning and teaching, and in the success or otherwise of policy implementation. By doing so, we hope, thirdly, to help bring about a shift towards greater valorization of the great diversity of practices in the history of language learning and teaching, as a complement to prevailing universalist accounts of the history of ideas on language learning and teaching. Last, but not least, we hope to pave the way for systematic comparative research that takes account of various dimensions of practice in the history of language education.