Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Classrooms: New Dilemmas for Teachers

The growing cultural, racial and linguistic diversity in schools has changed the face of language teaching in many countries. This book presents theory and research by a group of internationally recognised scholars who address the issues and challenges for teachers and their students in increasingly plurilingual and multicultural classrooms.

Jennifer Miller is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education at Monash University where she teaches postgraduate TESOL courses. Her research and publications are in the areas of language acquisition and identity, the sociocultural framing of language pedagogy, and teacher's work. Her book, Audible Difference: ESL and social identity (Multilingual Matters, 2003) explores the politics of speaking and identity for immigrant students in Australian high schools. Her current research concerns low literacy refugee students in the high school mainstream, and preservice teachers from non-English speaking backgrounds.
Margaret Gearon is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education at Monash University. She specialises in language teacher education at both preservice and inservice levels, curriculum and assessment in foreign and community (heritage) languages, and bilingual education. Her research interests are in immersion education, code-switching in the foreign language classroom, and how the knowledge and beliefs of preservice languages teachers are manifested in their classroom practices. She is currently project director for the design of a teacher training course for community languages teachers in Australia.
Alex Kostogriz is Associate Professor in TESOL in the School of Education, Deakin University. He has published widely on issues of professional practice and ethics of English language educators, teacher professional identity and learning, transcultural literacy and pedagogy of Thirdspace. He has co-edited Dimensions of Professional Learning (2007), special issues of Mind, Culture & Activity and English Teaching: Practice & Critique on learning in multicultural conditions.