ABSTRACT

This Introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the design of an English course for science students, blurs the in-class/out-of-class dichotomy to the extent that one wonders how helpful this distinction might be as language educators look to the future. It examines the role of emotions in the transformation of both urban and virtual spaces into places for learning. The book explores the affordances for language learning in a social learning space, a café where English learners meet for an evening twice each month. It aims to experiment with linguistic landscapes –language found in public places – as a pedagogical tool to enhance teacher education students' awareness of language use in multilingual urban spaces and to develop learner autonomy. The book also examines the attention spaces the learners move between as they work in teams to develop an online learning project for elementary school children.