This postgraduate seminar deals with theories of language which are conducive to language education, English language education in particular. The aim of the seminar is to explore the main differences between language learning and literacy development through an analysis of linguistic and social theories that have affected literacy education. Key themes to be dealt with in the seminar include traditional notions of literacy and new literacy studies, literacy development, multiliteracies and multimodality, formal and informal literacies. The seminar also deals with three traditions of critical literacy: critical literacy in Australia influenced by M.A.K. Halliday’s SFL, critical language awareness in the U.K. which has drawn on CDA and the critical pedagogy movement which originated in the U.S. from the work of Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire.