Capital, Commodity, and English Language Teaching

Simpson delivers a theoretically rigorous conception of capital and builds from this an investigation into how the circulation of capital for profit interrelates with the teaching of language. Simpson discusses ELT at both a global level, in discussion of the ELT industry in the UK, the US, Ireland, Canada, Japan, Spain, and transnationally online, as well as at a more local level, where finer detailed descriptions of the work-lives of those within the Japanese eikaiwa ELT industry are given. Drawing on a synthesis of Marxist and Bourdieusian theory, the book outlines a dialectical approach to understanding capital, and to understanding how the drive for profit and language education interrelate with one another. Simpson concludes by showing how such an approach might open up areas for further research in a number of contexts across the globe, as well as in light of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Providing a model for addressing global issues of ELT, this book is of interest to advanced students, scholars and professionals within applied linguistics, TESOL, sociolinguistics, and linguistic anthropology, language economics and related areas.