Excellence English

What Is English

Beliefs Statement

The field of English education encompasses three dimensions: (1) the teaching and learning of English, broadly and inclusively defined; (2) the preparation and continuing professional support of teachers of English at all levels of education; and (3) systematic inquiry into the teaching and learning of English. To accomplish this important work, English educators conduct interdisciplinary inquiry by drawing on English studies, education, the scientific study of human behavior, and related fields. They transform theory and research in these fields into pedagogical-content questions as a basis for enhancing the understanding of the teaching and learning of English in all of its manifestations.Central to the task of English educators is the preparation and support of teachers who, in turn, prepare learners to be creative, literate individuals; contributors to the cultural, social, and economic health of their communities; and fully participating and critically aware citizens of our democracy in a complex, diverse, and increasingly globalized world.

Associated Core Values:

• English educators promote the understanding among pre- and in-service teachers that language is used for multiple purposes within multiple meaning-making and communicative contexts.
• English educators model and strive to foster in K-16 students the mastery of personal, civic, and cultural literacies. Personal literacy includes engagement with reading, writing, and popular media that will bring students personal satisfaction, foster a sense of connection with themselves and those around them, and promote lifelong learning; civic literacy involves working with ideas and information that students will need to be mature, productive, and responsible citizens, and cultural literacy involves familiarity with stories, plays, poems, speeches, essays, and similar texts that will help students identify with their culture and empathetically understand the cultures of others.
• English educators encourage pre- and in-service teachers to connect K-16 students’ personal and intellectual needs to specific literacy and language practices through the appropriate selection of instructional materials and assignments.
• English educators promote and facilitate ways of teaching literacy that rely on the latest research in communication and language use. Committed to the fact that literacy involves active meaning making on the part of all participants, English educators encourage pre- and in-service teachers to foster language competence in a variety of genres, contexts and situations as they are continuously mediated by a plurality of social, cultural, and ideological factors.
• English educators are committed to promoting and facilitating the effective teaching of reading, viewing, and authoring of various types and genres of texts by and about individuals of both genders and representing diverse groups in terms of race, ethnicity, culture, and class.
• English educators strive to provide access for pre- and in-service teachers to the intellectual traditions and debates that inform English and education.
• English educators resolve to teach pre- and in-service teachers how to recognize the creative and critical literacy achievement of students of all backgrounds and abilities and to foster within them a sense of agency and critical engagement with the world, while also being able to identify, diagnose and address K-16 students’ difficulties with literacy learning.
• English educators recognize the value of communication technologies for pedagogical and research purposes, including emerging digital media and various other technologies that facilitate and enable the use of multiple forms and genres of literate communication. They assist pre- and in-service teachers in effectively integrating these technologies in their classrooms.
• English educators recognize and seek to convey to pre- and in-service teachers that English studies is a contested subject that encompasses multiple fields of inquiry and ideological perspectives.
• English as a subject encompasses culture and cultural literacy; therefore, English educators encourage the teaching of classic literary texts when appropriate, in addition to other valued literary genres, including young adult literature; creative nonfiction; contemporary popular fiction; web-based texts and media productions; film; written, spoken or scripted texts, and the variety of aural and visual media configurations constantly being invented.
• With hundreds of millions of people around the world using it daily, English is undoubtedly one of the most important global languages. 
  In virtually every country, it is an essential part of business, research, commerce, technology, politics, news and many other fields in which the exchange of ideas is essential.