ABSTRACT

Teaching English can be a wonderful experience: helping students to engage with the pathos of war poetry; the vicarious thrills of the Gothic horror novel and the moments when pupils really understand something and seem to grow a little taller with flowering confidence. However, teaching English can also be far more problematic and political than many would believe. The practical conceptions of English, as a high school subject, could be described as a cockatrice: a mythical beast comprised of a two-legged dragon with a rooster’s head. Ergo, it characterises the split identity and concurrent hybridous multiplicity of the nature of English. English has many different ideologies at play and many debates regarding the functions of it. Teachers of English have been encouraged at GCSE and A level to favour cultural critical views in examination contexts, with a focus upon psychological, Marxist and feminist readings.