ABSTRACT
The particular nature of English in a cross-curricular context This book is intended to stimulate interest in the cross-curricular potential of English teaching in secondary schooling, primarily for English teachers and those concerned with that branch of the teaching profession: student teachers, teacher educators and curriculum managers. As such, I am concerned in effect to develop the nature of English lessons as timetabled and clearly defi ned in the vast majority of secondary schools – and more or less determined by the subject-based nature of the National Curriculum – by alerting English teachers and others to the vast potential within the subject for making creative and practical use of cross-curricular ways of working and conceiving of the world in the context of English pedagogical traditions and within English lessons. However, I am also keenly aware that this book is one of a series considering cross-curricular teaching and learning from the perspectives of all the other secondary school subjects, and that, consequently, there will be almost inevitable overlap between some areas across the series. I view this as constructive rather than unfortunate, in that the very essence of interdisciplinary initiatives demands a broader outlook than that implied by subject boundaries. Making such connections is at the heart of this series and of this particular volume, and I would feel encouraged if, as a result of adopting cross-curricular approaches within English, its teachers felt inspired to seek more and more connections with colleagues from other subject disciplines in both practical and theoretical pedagogical contexts.
