ABSTRACT

This book offers unique insight into the role that English as a Foreign Language (EFL) discourse plays in shaping the ideological terrain of contemporary Israel/Palestine through constructing the subjectivities of those who plan, teach, and learn it.

While the EFL curriculum is uniform across Hebrew and Arabic-speaking educational contexts, this book traces how its cultural content reproduces dominant hegemonic ideologies, and perpetuates the social misrepresentations of the Other that underlie inequality. The language of English teaching textbooks, the way that students understand their content, and the official policy documents that guide both EFL materials and teaching practices, are all thoroughly examined through Critical Discourse Analysis. The theoretical and methodological foundation for further cross-cultural studies of Anglo-centric and other forms of hegemonic EFL discourses within local/global contexts, and for contesting their ideological effects, are also laid down.

Through promoting a transformative EFL cultural discourse which hopes to position EFL teaching as a possible arena for effecting social change, this book offers a unique context for students, scholars, and educators interested in linguistics, CDA, cultural discourse studies, English in local/global contexts, and EFL education.

chapter 1|25 pages

Introduction

Why English?

chapter 2|31 pages

EFL Discourse

Beyond Language Education

chapter 3|27 pages

EFL Textbooks as Ideological Vehicles 1

chapter 4|26 pages

Storied Selves

Analysis of EFL Learners’ Cultural Representations

chapter 5|22 pages

EFL Policy Discourse

Global and Local Perspectives

chapter 6|23 pages

EFL as a Cultural Discourse

Toward a Transformative EFL Pedagogy

chapter 7|19 pages

Conclusion

EFL as a Cultural Discourse of Action