This book adopts a multi-method and multi-phase approach to investigate the washback effects of Test for English Majors (TEM) on program administrators, teachers and students, shedding new light on TEM reform and the reform of English teaching and learning in China. TEM, a nationwide test used to measure the language proficiency of undergraduate English majors in China, is a major standardized test taken by nearly 400,000 students every year. The book's key features include: an in-depth discussion of the nature of washback and a framework for investigating it; a multi-method and multi-phase approach, employing both the quantitative method of questionnaire surveys and the qualitative methods of interviews and classroom observations; large-scale questionnaire surveys conducted among experts, program administrators, teachers and students, and involving over 30,000 participants; detailed assessments of TEM's washback effects on stakeholders' perceptions, classroom teaching practice, students learning activities, etc.; and essential insights into testing and teaching reforms.

Originally published in 1874. The book also contains specimens of Gypsy poetry, and an account of certain Gypsyries and of various things relating to Gypsy life in England. Contents include: The Gypsy Language - Word Book of the Romany - Gypsy verbs - Little Sayings - The Lord's Prayer in Gypsy Dialect - Book of Wisdom of the Egyptians - Gypsy names of Countries and Towns - English Gypsy Songs - Foreign Gypsy Songs - The English Gypsies - Gypsy names - Fortune Telling - Metropolitan Gypsies - Famous Gypsies. Etc

This two-volume set presents a comprehensive syntactical picture of Singapore Mandarin and discusses the distinguishing characteristics of the Chinese language and especially Singapore Mandarin. As a variety of Mandarin Chinese, Singapore Mandarin is characterised by syntactic rules taking precedence over morphological rules. The first volume provides an overview of the grammar of Singapore Mandarin and argues that word order and functional words are specifically important in the study of Singapore Mandarin. It also explains the properties and functions of the nine grammatical components, including phrase types, word classes, sentences, subjects and predicates, predicates and objects, predicates and complements, attributes and adverbials, complex predicate phrases and prepositions and prepositional phrases. The second volume describes expressions of number, quantity, time and place and composite sentences, covering seven types of compound sentences, eight types of complex sentences and connective words with a focus on conjunctions. The concluding part of the study explores the characteristics of Singapore Mandarin grammar compared with Chinese Mandarin (Putonghua) and issues of language standardisation. With rich and authentic language examples, the book will serve as a must read for learners and teachers of Mandarin Chinese and linguistics scholars interested in global Chinese and especially Singapore Mandarin.

With five books from the bestselling Practice Makes Perfect series-all in one volume-this book is the best value for learning Spanish at the level that matches your needs! With more than a 2 million copies sold, the Practice Makes Perfect series has always offered what you need to master the Spanish language: Clear explanations, practical examples, and all the practice required for growing mastery. In Practice Makes Perfect: Complete Spanish All-in-One, Premium Third Edition, you get even more at a spectacular value, with five books from the bestselling series in one volume. Structured to help you learn Spanish at your own level, Practice Makes Perfect: Complete Spanish All-in-One, Premium Third Edition covers Spanish grammar, sentence structures and conversation, and is enhanced with a comprehensive index that allows you quick reference to all grammar explanations in the book. This premium third edition is supported by the McGraw Hill Language Lab app, with vocabulary flash cards, audio conversations and answers to numerous exercises, and new recordings of all example sentences throughout the book. Comprehensive and user-friendly, this one-stop resource gives you the confidence you need to break through the barrier to competency and fluency in Spanish. Features Single volume contains five popular titles: Spanish Grammar; Spanish Intermediate Grammar; Spanish Sentence Builder; Spanish Problem Solver, and Spanish Conversation Integrated approach allows you to study at your own level and pace Supported by the McGraw Hill Language Lab app: This includes online flashcards for all vocabulary lists throughout the book, as well as streaming audio recordings for many exercise answer keys and conversations NEW: Audio recordings of example sentences throughout the book reinforce grammar concepts and improve pronunciation and oral comprehension

The book contains contributions from practitioners and theoreticians who explore the pronunciation of English from various perspectives: phonetic, phonological, psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic. In accordance with the unifying theme of the volume, individual contributions investigate the characteristics of a foreign accent, its production and perception, study the development of methods and techniques in pronunciation teaching, evaluate their use in classroom materials and in the classroom itself, and investigate the conditions for second language learning and teaching from the perspective of learners and teachers. The book offers a unique combination of a scholarly research with practical applications, inspired over the years by the work of Professor Wlodzimierz Sobkowiak, who has researched pronunciation teaching and pioneered technology-oriented, corpus-based approaches to the study of English pronunciation in Poland.

This edited collection challenges the perceptions of disciplinary, linguistic, geographical and ideological borders that run across language education. By highlighting commonalities and tracing connections between diverse sub-fields that have traditionally been studied separately, the book shows how the perspectives of practitioners and researchers working in diverse areas of language education can mutually inform each other. It consists of three thematic parts: Part I outlines the field of language education and challenges its definition by highlighting additional theoretical constructs that have tended to be viewed as separate from language education. Part II investigates curricular boundaries, showing how the language-learning curriculum can be enriched by connections with other curricular areas. Lastly, Part III looks into the challenges and opportunities associated with language education against the backdrop of globalisation.

Just how did a dialect spoken by a handful of shepherds in Northern Spain become the world's second most spoken language, the official language of twenty-one countries on two continents, and the unofficial second language of the United States? Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow, the husband-and-wife team who chronicled the history of the French language in "The Story of French"," " now look at the roots and spread of modern Spanish. Full of surprises and honed in Nadeau and Barlow's trademark style, combining personal anecdote, reflections, and deep research, "The Story of Spanish" is the first full biography of a language that shaped the world we know, and the only global language with two names--Spanish and Castilian.

The story starts when the ancient Phoenicians set their sights on "The Land of the Rabbits," Spain's original name, which the Romans pronounced as "Hispania." The Spanish language would pick up bits of Germanic culture, a lot of Arabic, and even some French on its way to taking modern form just as it was about to colonize a New World. Through characters like Queen Isabella, Christopher Columbus, Cervantes, and Goya, "The Story of Spanish" shows how Spain's Golden Age, the Mexican Miracle, and the Latin American Boom helped shape the destiny of the language. Other, more somber episodes, also contributed, like the Spanish Inquisition, the expulsion of Spain's Jews, the destruction of native cultures, the political instability in Latin America, and the dictatorship of Franco.

"The Story of Spanish" shows there is much more to Spanish than tacos, flamenco, and bullfighting. It explains how the United States developed its Hispanic personality from the time of the Spanish conquistadors to Latin American immigration and "telenovelas." It also makes clear how fundamentally Spanish many American cultural artifacts and customs actually are, including the dollar sign, barbecues, ranching, and cowboy culture. The authors give us a passionate and intriguing chronicle of a vibrant language that thrived through conquests and setbacks to become the tongue of Pedro Almodovar and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, of tango and ballroom dancing, of millions of Americans and hundreds of millions of people throughout the world.

This book focuses on ethical and methodological issues faced by researchers working with young language learners in formal school contexts. It uncovers and explicitly discusses a range of ethical dilemmas, challenges and experiences that researchers have encountered and grappled with, in studies of all kinds from large scale, experimental studies to ethnographic studies focused on just a handful of children. The chapters are written by researchers working with children in different classroom contexts around the world and highlight how ethical dilemmas and tensions take on a complex form in child-focused research, requiring researchers to pay particular attention to the social and cultural norms of the different communities within which children are educated as well as their school-based experiences. The book comprises three sections, with the first part focused on involving children as active participants in research; part two on ethical challenges in multilingual contexts and part three on links between teacher education and researching children. The book includes a critical discussion of the opportunities and challenges associated with applying the UNCRC (1989) document in second language research with children which will be of use to any researcher working in this area.

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This volume promotes a thought-provoking discussion on contemporary issues surrounding the teaching of language and literacy based on first hand experiences and research. Drawing on the authors' experiences as teacher educators, language and literacy teachers, and researchers on literacy issues it brings together the multiple traditions. What makes the proposed volume unique is the common theme that runs through all the chapters: the examination of the term literacy, the complexity of this term and the importance of having a wide understanding of what it is before tackling educational issues of pedagogy, assessment and student engagement. What is more, as the editors argue, it is necessary to join up the dots and explore the commonalities that form the core of the literacy spectrum.

This book presents folktales in the Herati dialect of the Afghan Persian language, along with useful transcriptions and translations. This dialect is spoken by the sedentary population of Herat city and the adjacent area situated in the northwest of Afghanistan. Historically, the area in question was part of the Persian province of Khorasan that was known for its significant role in the development of Persian culture in general and literature and philosophy in particular. Suffice it to say that the classical Persian language (Farsi) is considered to have originated in that region. For centuries, Herat has been one of the main cultural centers of the Khorasan province, and according to a reliable historic source, it was in Herat that the first poetical piece in Farsi was composed. The area was the birthplace of many most prominent Persian-speaking poets such as Ferdowsi, F. 'Attar, Khayyam, to mention a few. Others such as Jami and Ansari were originally from the Herat area and their shrines are located in the city. Given the fact that many early Persian-speaking poets came from this region (Khorasan) and from Herat in particular, their native Khorasani dialects--including Herati-- considerably influenced the language of Persian classical literature. The Herati dialect linguistic importance from the synchronic perspective is based on the fact that it serves as a bridge between the Persian dialects of western Iran and the Tajiki of Central Asia. In addition, given the geographic position of Herat (situated on the border between modern Afghanistan and Iran), its dialect also shares many common characteristics with the Persian dialects of Iran and those of Afghanistan. Despite its cultural and linguistic importance for studies in Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia, this region has never been open to field research (especially by westerners) because of its long political instability and constant wars. There is no similar published work in English on this particular Persian dialect and its oral literature. Based on academically informed fieldwork and presented in a scientific fashion, this study provides information previously unavailable and is thus valuable to the academic discourse in Iranian linguistics. The materials were collected by the author during field research in Afghanistan in the 1980s from illiterate dialect speakers (a category which has preserved the dialect the most in terms of purity and entirety). The book helpfully provides a grammatical introduction to the Herati dialect, a glossary of dialectal and common words, as well as approximately 500 explanatory notes. This book will be of interest to linguists and language learners, especially those studying Afghan Persian. It will also be useful as a language learning aid for intermediate and advanced students of spoken Afghan Persian in general and of Persian (in the broader sense) dialectology in particular, foreign NGO workers or interpreters/translators who find themselves in the field in western Afghanistan or far eastern Iran. Though the present book is by no means a study in folklore literature or anthropology, these texts containing ethnographic data will also be of value to folklorists or ethnographers.