Steve,
 
I would like to address your thought: 
 
"I think that the teaching of these disciplines should be left to specialists, and left to programs which are clearly identified as being about philosophy or political economy or Marxism or whatever.  To attempt to teach these under the guise of language teaching can be condescending, in the sense that it is more about showing off than achieving the specific pedagogical goal of improving language skills."

I would like to respectfully note that teaching expressive language is _impossible_ without including such issues as philosophy, political economy, etc., especially when we are speaking about adult population. Everything depends on _how_.
There is nothing wrong with introducing various, sometimes complicated issues, provided the preliminary stages have been covered, it's not a totally new topic, and it is relevant to the subject area. 
 
What we find out through serving ABE-GED students, is deficiency in analysing, and, especially, synthesising skills. These are the skills which are required to pass multiple tests, from FCAT to GED and by workforce. GED Social Studies and Science largely depend on the ability of the students to analyze information, which is in front of them, and give a synthezied answer (Reading Comprehension). A lot of our adults have not been taught or did not obtain these skills due to various reasons, therefore, it is critical to teach them _how_.  Therefore, teaching language skills _within_ the parameters of the subjects, which might as well include philosophical issues, Marxism (World Wars I and II, Cold War in GED Social Studies), reduces the gap between language skills and subject area skills.   
 
Same can be said about Writing. The GED scoring system correlates written expression in a form of free writing and a multiple choice. Students who score high on multiple choice (language mechanics skills), may fail overall Writing due to inability to adequately answer the essay prompt (again, analyzing and synthesizing).
 
Teaching students mechanics of language and leaving the rest to them, relying on the common adult sense, may sometimes become couterproductive, unless it is just a survival level.    
 
Tatyana Exum  
 
 		 	   		  
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