Language awareness: a new literacy dimension in school language education

Adding to definitions already available, the author suggests a description of Language Awareness (LA) firmly anchored in the language education (mother tongue English and modern foreign languages) realities of the multicultural classroom. He examines the purpose of LA in language education and provides a critical account of LA-centred lessons conducted in a number of classrooms in England as well as in Alberta and the Rhineland Palatinate with particular reference to in-service courses in Hertfordshire. The experiences which indicated that LA can make a contribution to curriculum development have confirmed the author and colleagues in their plans to mount a classroom-based research project to submit at least some of the claims made for LA to a strict test of evaluation.