Classrooms and "real" worlds: Boundaries, roadblocks, and connections

Abstract

In this chapter, I examine the language classroom and its relations to the rest of the world. I take an ecological approach; that is, I focus on the relationships among the various places and situations that members of language classrooms find themselves in and how these relationships are affected by a variety of constraining and enabling factors. In particular, I look at three sets of issues, two of them (named boundaries and roadblocks) constraining and the third (named connections) enabling. The chapter discusses ways in which the various issues raised have been and can be researched and reviews key theories and approaches, including the tension between micro- and macroperspectives and emic and etic perspectives. Questions addressed include the following: How do classrooms turn out the way that they do, and in what ways are they shaped by society or by their inhabitants? What are the factors that promote or limit connections between social ecosystems such as the family, the peer group, and the social/institutional ecosystem of the classroom? The sketch provided here is a very partial one, but in the last part of the chapter, some suggestions are offered that can make the classroom into a learning space that may forge connections between learning and the rest of the students’ lives.