1 Communicative Language Teaching and EAL: Principles and Interpretations Constant Leung Introduction In the past 50 years many English-speaking countries such as Australia, Britain, Canada and the USA have seen large-scale movements of people across national and language borders. These societies now have linguistically diverse school populations. For instance, in England about 13.5 per cent of the primary (elementary) school population is regarded as learners and users of English as an Additional Language (National Statistics, 2007), and in California 25 per cent of the school population is classified as English Language Learners (similar to ESL/EAL) (EdSource, 2008). Different education systems have responded to this growing trend of linguistic diversity in different ways (see Leung, 2007; Leung and Creese, 2008 for a detailed discussion). There is a variety of approaches to English language teaching for EAL learners. In some systems intensive initial EAL tuition is provided for new arrivals, in other places the main response is to make the mainstream (meaning the ordinary) school curriculum as accessible to EAL learners as possible. The latter approach is premised on the proposition that if EAL learners can participate in ordinary subject teaching-learning activities, then English language learning will follow. In this and the next three chapters of the book we will focus on the ideas and principles associated with classroom communication and participation, with particular reference to additional/second language. The teaching of English language, both as mother tongue and as an additional language, since the mid-1970s has been in numerous ways associated with the concept of Communicative Language Teaching. 1 The ideas underpinning this concept first emerged in the early 1970s and they represented a major shift from a view of language (and language teaching) that was primarily concerned with vocabulary and grammar. In this chapter I first present a brief account of the theoretical bases of the notion of language as communication in social 1 Leung & Creese 3968-Ch-01:Leung & Creese 3968-Ch-01 07/12/2009 10:33 AM Page 1