In contrast with other works on the history of language learning and teaching, this book is innovative in assigning a much more important role to practice and to the reciprocal relationship of policies and practice (rather than investigating top.down processes from policies to practice). The 14 contributions highlight various contexts of language education in the 20th century, combining inside.out (‘emic’) perspectives, drawing on teachers’/learners’ experience within the classroom, and outside.in (‘etic’) perspectives, looking at external factors such as the curriculum or education policies and considering how teachers and learners respond to these. Each chapter starts from one perspective, yet at the same time takes into account the reciprocal effects between the two directions of movement (inside.out / outside.in). This volume asks, how has the practice of language learning and teaching been influenced by policies and context – and vice versa?

Sabine Doff is professor of English Language Pedagogy at the University of Bremen, Germany. Her interests in research and teaching focus on the history of (modern) language learning in Europe and beyond, gender and language education as well as methods and methodology in the language classroom. Among her recent publications are: Policies and Practice in Language Learning and Teaching: 20th-century Historical Perspectives (with Richard Smith, eds., Amsterdam: AUP, in print); Media Meets Diversity @ School (with Joanna Pfingsthorn, eds., Trier: wvt; 2020).

Richard Smith is a Reader in ELT and Applied Linguistics in the Centre for Applied Linguistics, University of Warwick, UK.

I INTRODUCTION
(Sabine Doff & Richard Smith) Valorizing practice in 20th-century language learning and teaching
II CONTENT
(Stefan Kipf) Ovid’s Metamorphoses(Norman Ächtler)Teaching Schiller: Philological discourse and educational practice at Schools of Higher Education in the German Empire – The example of Wallenstein
(Sabine Reh) Writing about literature. Examination and text forms in L1 in the French zone of occupation, 1945-49
III METHOD
(Joanna Pfingsthorn) Practice escaping an ideological grip: How the CLT agenda slipped through the cracks of error taxonomies
(Tim Giesler)‘Teachers may feel that they should …’ – Attempts to align the intended and the taught curriculum in 1980s’ Bremen manuals for communicative language teaching
(John Daniels)The quest for Communicative Competence in foreign language learning in English schools, 1968-2010
(Laura Pinnavaia and Annalisa Zanola) Teaching English writing in the twentieth century seen through handbooks for mother-tongue and foreign speakers
IV AIMS
(Silvia Pireddu) “Too much workload in technical schools!”: Luigi Pavia and the teaching of English in Italian schools on the threshold of the 20th century
(Kohei Uchimaru)Yoshisaburô Okakura and the practical value of the study of English in secondary schools in early twentieth-century Japan
(Shona Whyte)The British juggernaut: ESP practice and purpose in the 1970s
V CONTEXT
(Irmina Kotlarska)Sociocultural, political and educational aspects of teaching English in Polish schools in the interwar period (1918-1939)
(Ekaterine Shaverdashvili & Nino Chkhikvdze) English as a foreign language in Georgia: From past till present
(Sharon Harvey)Language teacher education improvements would valorise practice: A recent history of intercultural language teaching in Aotearoa/New Zealand
(Robert J. Fouser)Social attitudes toward ‘school English’ in classroom practice in South Korea from 1970 to the present.