This collected book analyzes the phenomenon of crisis manifested across various historical periods. It offers unique, multifaceted, and interdisciplinary perspectives on the issues of crises and finds numerous applications in the fields of literature, linguistics, advertising, photography, and foreign language teaching. The collection is divided into two parts. The chapters in its first part analyze literature and language: from medieval England to cultural changes in America occurring under the influence of the transformation caused by the propagation of print culture. The incisive commentaries consider the works of culture that span not only literature but also film. They reveal how much we can learn by considering how past generations perceived reality in times of crisis. The second part of the book contains chapters, which examine texts related to contemporary crises expressed in the visual media of advertising and photography, but also in foreign language teaching. As the authors show, both ads and non-commercial, socially engaged photographs can influence the viewer in a swift and impactful manner by conveying messages of great social importance. The authors convincingly that argue both photographs and ads can be used for social benefit by visualizing even the unpleasant or shocking sides of reality. Finally, the notion of crisis experienced by students of English as a foreign language is analyzed and supplemented by research which may prove useful for researchers and practitioners alike.

The aim of this study is to establish the co-operative communication strategies that are used in air traffic control (ATC) conversations. The research deals with the question: what kind of co-operative communication strategies do pilots and controllers employ in a speech situation with a restricted use of vocabulary, which generally does not permit any deviations from standard phraseology? The strategies in ATC speech are then compared to those used by second language learners. Faerch and Kasper's (1983) taxonomy of communication strategies will serve as a basis for this comparison. The author analyses authentic speech samples from various ATC workstations at Zurich Airport and evaluates various aspects of phraseology training of air traffic controllers.

This edited book brings together ten empirical papers reporting original studies investigating different facets of individual variation second language learning and teaching. The individual difference factors covered include, among others, motivation, self, anxiety, emotions, willingness to communicate, beliefs, age, and language learning strategies. What is especially important, some of the contributions to the volume offer insights into intricate interplays of these factors while others attempt to relate them to learning specific target language subsystems or concrete instructional options. All the chapters also include tangible implications for language pedagogy. The book is of interest to both researchers examining the role of individual variation in second language learning and teaching, teacher trainers, graduate and doctoral students in foreign languages departments, as well as practitioners wishing to enhance the effectiveness of second language instruction in their classrooms.

This book explores the influence of high stakes standardised testing within the context of South Korea. South Korea is regarded as a shining example of success in educational achievement and, as this book reveals, pressurised standardised testing has been a major contributing factor to its success. This unique country provides an excellent setting from which to explore the powerful relationship that exists between testing and learning and can advance our understanding of which factors and test conditions will positively and negatively influence learning. This book follows the test activity of a group of Korean university students preparing for the TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) and posits a revised model of the influence of testing on learning. It calls for a more socially situated view of tests and test-takers considered in relation to the sociocultural, historical, political and economic contexts in which they are embedded.

The preamble to the post-apartheid South African constitution states that 'South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity' and promises to 'lay the foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by law' and to 'improve the quality of life of all citizens'. This would seem to commit the South African government to, amongst other things, the implementation of policies aimed at fostering a common sense of South African national identity, at societal dev- opment and at reducing of levels of social inequality. However, in the period of more than a decade that has now elapsed since the end of apartheid, there has been widespread discontent with regard to the degree of progress made in connection with the realisation of these constitutional aspirations. The 'limits to liberation' in the post-apartheid era has been a theme of much recent research in the ?elds of sociology and political theory (e. g. Luckham, 1998; Robins, 2005a). Linguists have also paid considerable attention to the South African situation with the realisation that many of the factors that have prevented, and are continuing to prevent, effective progress towards the achievement of these constitutional goals are linguistic in their origin.

This edited collection explores the processes of second language learning and teaching from a psycholinguistic perspective. Authored by leading experts in the field, the book includes studies focusing on theoretical, empirical and practical aspects of second and foreign language education. Part One offers contributions devoted to a range of learner-related factors, dealing with affective and cognitive variables, the process of reading and the acquisition of lexis. Part Two brings together papers related to teacher awareness of second language instruction that focus on conversational styles, fostering intercultural pragmatics, teacher job satisfaction, the development of instructional materials and challenges of teacher training in different contexts. It is of interest to researchers as well as graduate and postgraduate students seeking fresh inspirations for their own empirical investigations of the ways in which second and foreign languages are taught and learned.

This volume builds a conceptual basis for assessment promoting learning in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) classrooms and proposes practical assessment approaches and activities that CLIL teachers can apply in the classroom. CLIL as an educational context is unique, as language and content learning happen simultaneously. The efficacy of such instruction has been studied extensively, but assessment in CLIL classrooms has drawn much less attention. The present volume aims to fill this gap. Arranged based on different ways that content and language are integrated in CLIL, the chapters in this book together build a solid theoretical basis for assessment promoting learning in CLIL classrooms. The authors discuss how assessment eliciting this integration yields insights into learners' abilities, but more importantly, how these insights are used to promote learning. The contributors to the volume together build the understanding of classroom-based assessment as cyclic, of teaching, learning, and assessment as inter-related, and of content and language in CLIL classrooms as a dialectical unity. This volume will spark interest in and discussion of classroom-based assessment in CLIL among CLIL educators and researchers, enable reflection of classroom assessment practices, and foster collaboration between CLIL teachers and researchers. The assessment approaches and activities discussed in the volume, in turn, will help educators understand the scope of applications of assessment and inspire them to adapt these to their own classrooms.

Basics of Ancient Ethiopic by Archie Wright introduces students to the basic grammar of ancient Ethiopic (Ge'ez) while approaching the language through its wider cultural and literary context, and its historical legacy. As part of the widely-used Zondervan Language Basics series of resources, Wright's Ethiopic grammar is a student-friendly introduction. It helps students learn by: Minimizing technical jargon Providing only the information needed to learn the basics Breaking the grammar of language down into manageable and intuitive chunks Illustrating the grammar in question by its use in rich selections from ancient Christian and the Second Temple Jewish books of 1 Enoch and Jubilees Providing grammar, readings, exercises, and a lexicon all in one convenient volume Basics of Ethiopic provides an ideal first step into this important language and focuses on getting the student into texts and translation as quickly as possible.

Humans' development of literacy has been a recent focus of intense research from the reading, cognitive, and neuroscience fields. But for individuals who are deaf-who rely greatly on their visual skills for language and learning-the findings don't necessarily apply, leaving theoretical and practical gaps in approaches to their education. Assessing Literacy in Deaf Individuals: Neurocognitive Measurement and Predictors narrows these gaps by introducing the VL2 Toolkit, a comprehensive test battery for assessing the academic skills and cognitive functioning of deaf persons who use sign language. Skills measured include executive functioning, memory, reading, visuospatial ability, writing fluency, math, and expressive and receptive language. Comprehensive data are provided for each, with discussion of validity and reliability issues as well as ethical and legal questions involved in the study. And background chapters explain how the Toolkit was compiled, describing the procedures of the study, its rationale, and salient characteristics of its participants. This notable book: Describes each Toolkit instrument and the psychometric properties it measures. Presents detailed findings on test measures and relationships between skills. Discusses issues and challenges relating to visual representations of English, including fingerspelling and lipreading. Features a factor analysis of the Toolkit measures to identify underlying cognitive structures in deaf learners. Reviews trends in American Sign Language assessment. Assessing Literacy in Deaf Individuals is an essential reference for researchers, graduate students, clinicians, and other professionals working in the field of deafness and deaf education across in such areas as clinical child and school psychology, audiology, and linguistics.

This book focuses on how instruction affects English learners' use of Theme and thematic progression (thematic organization). While thematic organization in learner English has been extensively studied, little research has been done to investigate the effects of instruction on the use of Theme and thematic progression. Adopting a Systemic Functional Grammar approach, this study explores how a ten-week instruction on thematic organization affects Chinese college students' use of Theme and thematic progression by comparing their English essays before and after the instruction, with native-speaker essays as the research baseline. Second-language acquisition researchers, curriculum developers and foreign language teachers will find this book useful as it not only presents a clear and detailed report of how Chinese college students learn to make better thematic choices, but also provides a well-developed instructional package on Theme and thematic progression.

This book presents key issues in the teaching of Chinese as a second or foreign language (TCSL or TCFL). It investigates how multimedia can help to assist TCSL/TCFL and explores practical effects of multimedia-assisted teaching at secondary schools in the Philippines. It addresses the psychology of TCSL/TCFL and discusses various recurring foreign graduate students concerns when learning academic Chinese in graduate institutes in Taiwan. It examines issues of educational assessment and testing, analyzing the validity of a self-made placement test for an immigrant Chinese program, as well as the psychological characteristics of adult learners and their implications for immigrant Chinese curriculum design. As foreign learners of Chinese grow exponentially, this cutting edge read conceptualizes the educational philosophy of TCSL/TCFL as a distinctive discipline.