Teaching Language in Context

Language is at the heart of the learning process. We learn through language. Our knowledge about the world is constructed in language-the worlds of home and the community, the worlds of school subjects, the worlds of literature, the worlds of the workplace, and so on. It is through language that we interact with others and build our identities. Teachers' explanations, classroom discussions, assessment of student achievement, and students' understanding, composition, and evaluation of texts are all mediated through language. In this book, the authors explore how an explicit understanding of how language works enables students to make informed choices in their use and understanding of texts.

Teaching Language in Context 2e is an introduction to the language that students encounter in the various curriculum areas as they move through the years of schooling and it will enable teachers to:
- plan units of work that are sensitive to the language demands placed on students
- design activities with a language focus
- select texts for reading at an appropriate level
- analyse texts to identify relevant language and visual features
- create teaching materials that integrate an awareness of language
- help students to access meanings created through a variety of media (written, spoken, visual, multimodal)
- provide explicit support in developing students' writing and composing
- assess students' written work
- extend students' ability to articulate what they are learning.

In this second edition, there is an increased emphasis on the multimodal nature of texts, particularly the relationship between image and language, and the place of visuals in supporting students to master the literacy demands of the curriculum. The book also recognises the increasingly elaborate texts found in the more complex literacy tasks of upper primary and lower secondary classrooms.