This book situates the teaching and learning of language in general, and English in particular, within the sociocultural context of India. It engages with current scholarship in literacy studies and the pedagogies of language acquisition and learning.

The volume discusses the cultural, discursive and sociopolitical functions of language education and the teaching of English in Indian schools. It examines the importance of adopting flexible pedagogical and multimodal strategies in teaching vocabulary; grammar; literary genres like fiction, poetry and drama; rhetorical discourses; and communicative English to learners for whom English is not one of their home language(s). It also discusses pragmatic approaches to curriculum design for communicative competence and critical literacy rooted in theoretical principles of language education. The authors analyse issues relevant to secondlanguage acquisition; English language teaching (ELT); emergent, adult and critical literacies; and critical pedagogies in language and literature.

Written in an accessible style, the book comes with case studies, exercises and additional references to support an independent exploration of the fields. This book will be of interest to students and teachers of language, literature and education, as well as teachers and educators in schools and universities. It is also of relevance to policymakers, non-governmental organisations and public and private sector bodies that work in the fields of language and literacy.

Nishevita Jayendran is Assistant Professor of Language and Literature at the Centre of Excellence in Teacher Education (CETE; formerly CEIAR), Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, where she teaches and consults on language education, literacy, materials design, creative writing and discourse analysis. Her research and publications span the domains of critical literacy, critical pedagogy, literary criticism, representation and culture studies.

Anusha Ramanathan teaches courses on assessment, instructional design, language education, literacy and mentoring and co-anchors blended and online Continuous Professional Development programmes at CETE (formerly CEIAR), TISS. She has vast experience as a content developer, curriculum consultant, department head, editor, syllabus designer, teacher-educator and (visiting) faculty for language, literature, management and media studies. Her research interests include assessment, culture studies, ed-tech, ELT, literature, media studies, policy and teacher education.

Surbhi Nagpal works in the areas of language education and Teacher Professional Development (TPD). She has designed and implemented online and blended courses in language education at the CETE. She has worked as a teacher, teacher-educator and researcher in the past, and her research areas include TPD and ELT.