ABSTRACT
Even the name of the subject ‘English teaching’, as will be discussed further in Chapter 1, should not be taken for granted. ‘English teaching’ is often taken to mean mother tongue teaching but, owing to migration and international travel, many pupils in the contemporary secondary classroom learn English as a second language. This makes increasing demands on the teacher. A new project on language education led by the Council of Europe uses the term ‘language as subject’ to acknowledge the fact that in many situations the main language(s) of instruction in a school will not be the mother tongue of all pupils. The project also identifies intercultural and plurilingual education as key aims of ‘language as subject’ teaching.
