ABSTRACT
This article reviews some issues in the language education of teachers during the past fifteen years and discusses the relationship between linguistics and education with particular reference to the training of teachers. The following main points are argued: that linguistics is not just a description of the formal features of language but is also a study of language ‘as an institution’ which can condition the way individuals see each other, both in and out of schools; that the social basis of language study (or sociolinguistics) should be a core element in the courses which linguists should work out with teacher educators; and that teachers’ fears about linguistics are groundless – because of its systematic attention to language it can help solve many practical language problems in the classroom.
