Community-based Language Learning offers a new framework for world language educators interested in integrating community-based language learning (CBLL) into their teaching and curricula. CBLL connects academic learning objectives with experiential learning, ranging from reciprocal partnerships with the community (e.g., community engagement, service learning) to one-directional learning situations such as community service and site visits. This resource prepares teachers to implement CBLL by offering solid theoretical frameworks alongside real-world case studies and engaging exercises, all designed to help students build both language skills and authentic relationships as they engage with world language communities in the US. Making the case that language learning can be a tool for social change as well, Community-based Language Learning serves as a valuable resource for language educators at all levels, as well as students of language teaching methodology and community organizations working with immigrant populations.

The book focuses on investigating pragmatic learning, teaching and testing in foreign language contexts. The volume brings together research that investigates these three areas in different formal language learning settings. The number and variety of languages involved both as the first language (e.g. English, Finnish, Iranian, Spanish, Japanese) as well as the target foreign language (e.g. English, French, German, Indonesian, Korean, Spanish) makes the volume specially attractive for language educators in different sociocultural foreign language contexts. Additionally, the different approaches adopted by the researchers participating in this volume, such as information processing, sociocultural, language socialization, computer-mediated or conversation analysis should be of interest to graduate students and researchers working in the area of second language acquisition.

This book examines approaches to teaching students who aim to make the leap from "advanced" or "superior" proficiency in a foreign language to "near-native" ability. While there are an abundance of publications on classroom techniques and methods for lower levels of instruction, almost nothing exists about the transition, which is vital for those who intend to use foreign languages in high-level arenas. Compiled by leading practitioners in this area of foreign language teaching, the book fills the gap for those developing programs at the "advanced to distinguished" level.

This book examines approaches to teaching students who aim to make the leap from "advanced" or "superior" proficiency in a foreign language to "near-native" ability. While there are an abundance of publications on classroom techniques and methods for lower levels of instruction, almost nothing exists about the transition, which is vital for those who intend to use foreign languages in high-level arenas. Compiled by leading practitioners in this area of foreign language teaching, the book fills the gap for those developing programs at the "advanced to distinguished" level.

Tasks in Second Language Learning aims to bring more fully into debate the holistic nature of language learning, which tasks are one way of achieving, and to outline the research implications of this perspective. It sets language learning tasks within a broad educational and social science perspective, with a consistent focus on the principles and practices of their use in the language classroom. Using case study data, illustrative materials, transcript data, and close analyses of published research studies, it provides ample and lively illustration of the contributions of a range of specialists in research, teaching methodology and materials development, and of the authors' own argument.

This book features effective artistic practices to improve literacy and language skills for emergent bilinguals in PreK-12 schools. Including insights from key voices from the field, this book highlights how artistic practices can increase proficiency in emergent language learners and students with limited access to academic English. Challenging current prescriptions for teaching English to language learners, the arts-integrated framework in this book is grounded in a sense of student and teacher agency and offers key pedagogical tools to build upon students' sociocultural knowledge and improve language competence and confidence. Offering rich and diverse examples of using the arts as a way of talking, this volume invites teacher educators, teachers, artists, and researchers to reconsider how to fully engage students in their own learning and best use the resources within their own multilingual educational settings and communities.

The influence of cognitive processing on second language acquisition (SLA), and on the development of second language (SL) instruction, has always been a subject of major interest to both SLA researchers and those involved in SL pedagogy. Recent theoretical research into SLA and SL pedagogy has shown renewed interest in the role of cognitive variables such as attention, short, working, and long term memory, and automaticity of language processing. This volume first examines the theoretical foundations of research into the cognitive processes underlying SLA, and then describes various implications for pedagogically oriented research and for SL classroom practice. This book's blend of research from the cognitive sciences and applied linguistics make it an excellent introduction to applied linguists and language teachers interested in the psycholinguistic processes underlying SLA.

This module introduces Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS), an input-based language teaching method. TPRS provides a framework for teaching classes completely in the target language-even those at the beginner level. Through the steps of establishing meaning, creating a story that is acted out live in class, and reading, students understand and use the target language to communicate right away. Research shows that over time TPRS creates fluent speakers who excel both on traditional tests and-more importantly-in real-life situations. This is a valuable resource on TPRS for world language teachers, language teacher educators, and second language researchers.

Illustrated by an empirical study of English as a Foreign Language reading in Argentina, this book argues for a different approach to the theoretical rationales and methodological designs typically used to investigate cultural understanding in reading, in particular foreign language reading. It presents an alternative approach which is more authentic in its methods, more educational in its purposes, and more supportive of international understanding as an aim of language teaching in general and English language teaching in particular.

Non-native language teachers have often been viewed as an unavoidable fate of the profession, rather than an asset worth exploring and investigating. Now that non-natives are increasingly found teaching languages, and particularly English, both in ESL and EFL contexts, the identification of their specific contributions and their main strengths has become more relevant than ever.

As a result, there has recently been a surge of interest in the role of non-native teachers but little empirical research has been published so far. This volume is particularly rich in providing different approaches to the study of non-native teachers: NNS teachers as seen by students, teachers, graduate supervisors, and by themselves. It also contributes little explored perspectives, like classroom discourse analysis, or a social-psychological framework to discuss conceptions of NNS teachers.

This collection of original essays brings together contributors from both sides of the Atlantic to discuss the implications of the new media for the creation, delivery and assessment of English studies. Strategies by which digital technologies can serve professional, scholarly and pedagogical needs in a completely new way are explored in the context of the role and mission of humanities in the electronic age, student learning from a distance, teaching e-lit, electronic tutorials and interdisciplinarity and collaboration in a virtual environment. Including a useful Glossary of Terms and lists of Further Reading and Key Individuals in the field, this will be an essential volume for all teachers of English Studies.

The term 'new learning environments' has, in the past, been employed almost exclusively in relation to discussions on the use of computers in language learning. This volume seeks to provide a broader interpretation for language learners, teachers and researchers who are increasingly involved in language learning beyond the traditional environment of the classroom. Contributors explore a range of theoretical and pedagogical frameworks which inform the development of new learning environments, the forms these environments take, and how they are created and sustained. This volume explores the issue of whether new learning environments call for new methodologies and support new kinds of learning, the extent to which they can be developded within schools and universities, and their potential role in language learning within the wider community.

This book investigates the relationships between learner strategy use and performance on second language tests. To this effect, it examines the construct validity of two questionnaires, designed within a model of human information processing, that purport to measure testtakers' self-reported cognitive and metacognitive strategy use. It then examines the construct validity of the FCE Anchor test, developed by the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate, to measure second language proficiency. This book is a useful resource for those interested in understanding the effects of strategy use on performance, for those interested in training students to use strategies in language classrooms and for those interested in using structural equation modelling as an analytic tool for examining the effects of socio-psychological background variables on performance.

Understanding what constitutes expertise in language learning and teaching is important for theoretical reasons related to psycholinguistic, and applied linguistic, enquiry. It also has many significant applications in practice, particularly in relation to the training and practice of language teachers and improvements in students' strategies of learning. In this volume, methodologies for establishing what constitutes expert practice are discussed and the contributions address the fields of listening, reading, writing, speaking and communication strategies, looking at common characteristics of the 'expert teacher' and the 'expert learner'.

The starting point for this collection is a chapter by Dick Allwright on the language learning and teaching classroom experience entitled "Six Promising Directions in Applied Linguistics," The other distinguished contributors respond to this discussion with their own interpretations and from their own experience. The collection problematizes prescription, efficiency, and technical solutions as orientations to classroom language learning. Complexity and idiosyncrasy, on the other hand, are recognized as central concepts in a move towards centralizing teachers' and learners' own understanding of "classroom life," in the contexts of language learning, adult literacy education and language teacher education.

Drawing on sociocultural theories of learning, this book examines how the everyday language practices and cultural funds of knowledge of youth from non-dominant or minoritized groups can be used as centerpoints for classroom learning in ways that help all students both to sustain and expand their cultural and linguistic repertoires while developing skills that are valued in formal schooling. Bringing together a group of ethnographically grounded scholars working in diverse local contexts, this volume identifies how these language practices and cultural funds of knowledge can be used as generative points of continuity and productively expanded on in schools for successful and inclusive learning. Ideal for students and researchers in teaching, learning, language education, literacy, and multicultural education, as well as teachers at all stages of their career, this book contributes to research on culturally and linguistically sustaining practices by offering original teaching methods and a range of ways of connecting cultural competencies to learning across subject matters and disciplines.

A book that develops an understanding of practices at the very centre of language education - the classroom. It is written for postgraduate students in Applied Linguistics and Education, and practitioners, whether in TESOL or other language teaching, In Part 1 the author explores key concepts in unpacking the complexity of classroom life. In Part 2 existing research and practice are examined through a series of research case studies. Part 3 provides a template for research activity and suggestions for projects and methodologies, and Part 4 collects resources for readers keen to follow up the themes developed in the book .

The authors describe evaluation as a way of understanding and developing language programs: the thematic and background section sets out the decision-making, quality management, and learning functions of evaluation. Case studies illustrate the diversity of evaluation contexts, functions and approaches, documenting the ways in which evaluation processes and outcomes inform and facilitate program development, and contribute to explaining how language and teacher education programs constitute opportunities for learning. The ways in which evaluation practice can be researched and developed to maximize policy, institutional and program effectiveness is included, and a comprehensive set of resources for those commissioning, undertaking or researching language program evaluations concludes the text.

This is a resource for researchers and practitioners in a range of applied linguistics fields, including TESOL, language education and more generally, discourse analysis and stylistics. Pedagogically, this translates into recognition that students can be helped to develop a critical understanding of literary discourse as linguistic communication to the mutual enrichment of their literary, linguistic and cultural understandings. A conceptual map of the field, relevant researchable topics, research guidance and resources, and illustrative case studies drawn widely from real life teaching and research contexts are provided.

An Introduction to Foreign Language Learning and Teaching provides an engaging, student-friendly guide to the field of foreign language learning and teaching. Aimed at students with no background in the area and taking a task-based approach, this book: introduces the theoretical and practical aspects of both learning and teaching; provides discussion and workshop activities throughout each chapter of the book, along with further reading and reflection tasks; deals with classroom- and task-based teaching, and covers lesson planning and testing, making the book suitable for use on practical training courses; analyses different learning styles and suggests strategies to improve language acquisition; includes examples from foreign language learning in Russian, French, and German, as well as English; is accompanied by a brand new companion website at www.routledge.com/cw/johnson, which contains additional material, exercises, and weblinks. Written by an experienced teacher and author, An Introduction to Foreign Language Learning and Teaching is essential reading for students beginning their study in the area, as well as teachers in training and those already working in the field.

The papers in this volume represent the views of a range of experts in a variety of language-related disciplines on the role which context plays in language learning and language understanding. The authors provide various theoretical constructs which help impose order on the apparent chaos of contextual factors which may have an influence on the production and comprehension of speech events. They focus on a variety of types of context, including the context established by different speech communities, interpersonal contexts, the classroom context, and the context provided by the linguistic code itself. The papers illustrate how the treatment of context varies across the disciplines of linguistics, historical stylistics, applied linguistics, and psycholinguistics. Each paper is prefaced by an editorial introduction to help the reader trace out common themes and points of conflict.

Winner - British Council Innovation in English Language Teaching Award 2006 This book was written for language teachers by language teachers, with a view to encouraging readers to use more tasks in their lessons, and to explore for themselves various aspects of task-based teaching and learning. It gives insights into ways in which tasks can be designed, adapted and implemented in a range of teaching contexts and illustrates ways in which tasks and task-based learning can be investigated as a research activity. Practising language teachers and student professionals on MA TESOL/Applied Linguistics courses will find this a rich resource of varied experience in the classroom and a stimulus to their own qualitative studies.

Verbal protocol analysis (VPA) is a methodology that is being used extensively by researchers. Recently, individuals working in the area of testing, and in language testing in particular, have begun to appreciate the roles VPA might play in the development and evaluation of assessment instruments. VPA is a complex methodology however, and individuals choosing to use the technique require some degree of training in order to maximise the benefits in adopting this approach, and in order to avoid some of the more common misunderstandings and pitfalls associated with the use of verbal data. This book aims to provide potential practitioners of VPA with the background to the technique and a good understanding of what is entailed in using VPA in specific context of language testing and assessment. Tutorial exercises are presented which enable the reader to try out each of the different steps involved in VPA.

A proper understanding of intelligibility is at the heart of effective pronunciation teaching, and with it, successful teaching of speaking and listening. Far from being an optional 'add-it-on-if-we-have-time' language feature, pronunciation is essential because of its tremendous impact on speech intelligibility. Pronunciation dramatically affects the ability of language learners to make themselves understood and to understand the speech of others. But not all elements of pronunciation are equally important. Some affect intelligibility a great deal, while others do not. With a strong emphasis on classroom practice and how pronunciation teaching can be more effectively approached in different teaching contexts, this book provides an important resource for pronunciation researchers, with a distinctly practical focus. It shows how intelligibility research informs pronunciation teaching within communicative classrooms, enabling language teachers to incorporate intelligibility findings into their teaching. Professionals interested in oral communication, pronunciation, and speech perception will find the book fascinating.

Addressed to researchers in Applied Linguistics, and to professional teachers working in, or studying teaching and learning processes in, multilingual classrooms, Critical Reading in Language Education offers a distinctive contribution to the question of how foreign language learners can be helped to acquire effective literacy in English. At the heart of the book is first-hand classroom research by the author as both teacher and researcher, demonstrating an innovative research methodology and empirical evidence to support a critical reading pedagogy.