our words make worlds

Diasporic Identities and the Politics of Language Teaching

This strand takes an applied approach by working with language teachers, active worldmakers who move seamlessly between different linguistic and cultural worlds. Their inner selves, their personal and professional identities, are moulded and enriched by their experiences of diaspora. Highly skilled at worldmaking, teachers draw on their own rich linguistic and cultural resources for translating and re-making cultural concepts. Through this research, we seek to understand how teachers see themselves in their role as mediators between languages and cultures and how they perform this role in their teaching practice. This research also entails a critical appraisal of the institutional and political issues around the provision of modern language teaching in the UK from the perspective of the teachers.

Diasporic Identities and the Politics of Language Teaching Team