One of the biggest conundrums facing our education system at all levels, from the pre-kindergarten to the advanced tertiary, is the language question. Teachers struggle with building relationships and understanding with toddlers who come into their classrooms from multiple linguistic backgrounds. Professors at the postgraduate level struggle with the same issue, rendered many times more complex, when having to discuss abstract concepts in an unfamiliar – or at best, poorly understood – language. Even though we may have ostensibly set aside much of our colonial baggage, we continue to have a troubled and uneasy relationship with the language. While present generations may no longer have the luxury of debating the political implications of adopting what was once a “foreign tongue”, we cannot escape or wish away the social, economic and cultural implications of avoiding it. In fact, for most of us, there is no escape from English. There’s a widespread acceptance that if we are to get ahead in this world, we must get comfortable with it, in our daily lives, in the workplace, and most certainly, in our classrooms. This issue of Teacher Plus delves into the intricacies of English language teaching: beginning with a historical perspective, we move on through the politics and the problematic to the practicalities. Our guest editor, Manaswini Sridhar, has helped us put together a diverse array of articles that should stimulate thinking and activity around the important project of language teaching. Some of the pieces relate to how we might re-think our approach to teaching and assessment, while others emphasize the need to think about language use as an important skill that is increasingly indispensible in the employment arena. And yet others pull back and force us to look critically at how what happens in the language classroom shapes attitudes to culture and society. As is the case with any of our special issues, it’s impossible to put a circle around a theme and say we’ve got it covered. The pages of a magazine are simply not enough to explore every aspect of a subject in every possible way. So there are bound to be gaps, unexpressed ideas and whole swathes of information missing. But as with every special issue, we present this to you as just a tiny tip of the proverbial iceberg! “English, English everywhere, Nor a correct word heard or spoken anywhere.” Strangely enough, this seems to be the plight of the English language in contemporary India. Generation X, raring to conquer the latest technology,
