The present study is concerned with Pakistan, a society where even the casual observer would notice that class, with its inseparable economic dimension, plays a crucial role in almost all aspects of life. With respect to children learning English, upper class parents have vastly more resources to devote, in terms of paying for schooling in different schools (see below), buying English books and other resources (e.g. satellite TV) for home use, and travel to English speaking countries. Above all, mostly upper class parents speak English at home and with friends in certain circumstances, and often at work, since the more prestigious jobs often involve the use of English, so for their children this is an English as a second (rather than foreign) language environment, with plenty of exposure to the target language outside the instructional setting of school, no doubt developing the BICS side of English proficiency (Cummins 1983). At the other end of the spectrum, lower class parents have no money for any special support in English, may only be semi-literate, and do not themselves know English: their children encounter English only as a subject in school (i.e. a foreign language), and may have to do forms of work out of school that limit the time they can spend on homework etc. For these reasons one would expect a strong relationship between SES and English language proficiency achieved by a child in his/her late teens.

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