Biliteracy and Globalization

Book excerpt: This book analyzes how the urban disadvantaged in the city of New Delhi learn English. Using qualitative methods the author discusses the pedagogy, texts and contexts in which biliteracy occurs and links English language teaching and learning in India with the broader social and economic processes of globalization in a developing country. The study is situated in a government school, a site where classrooms have rarely been qualitatively described, and where the Three Language Formula (TLF) is being fundamentally transformed due to increasing demand from the community for earlier access to the linguistic capital of English. Through research conducted in a call centre the author also shows what the requirements of new workplaces are and how government schools are trying to meet this demand.