ABSTRACT
This chapter considers language in one of its most controversial domains, that of education. Edmund Coote's authorship of The English Schoole-maister may have embarrassed the governors of a school which prided itself on exclusive instruction in classical languages. The chapter discusses language in education by contrasting language as it is first used and developed – in the context of students' families, homes and communities – with how it is used in school. It examines language as a medium of education and an object in contexts of formal schooling, before considering the case of linguistic minorities and students with special needs and issues of language in educational testing and assessment. The chapter also discusses the roles that applied linguists can play in schools and other educational settings. A way that applied linguistics can promote language in education is through discourse analysis.
