Teacher Language Awareness (TLA) is an area of increasing interest to those involved in language teacher education. This book provides an introduction to the nature of TLA, assesses its impact upon teaching and its potential impact on learning. The book focuses specifically on grammar. It aims to encourage teachers and others involved in language education to think more deeply about the importance of TLA ad to adopt a more principled approach to the planning of those parts of their programmes assosciated with it.
Materials Development in Language Teaching aims to help readers apply current theoretical principles and research findings to the practical realities of developing and exploiting classroom materials. The authors also suggest new ideas and directions in materials development, which readers can pursue for themselves. This book is accessible to readers with little previous experience in the field, and is essential reading for all those involved in developing materials for language teaching. In the second edition of this highly popular title, each chapter has been comprehensively revised and updated to take into account both recent research and the significant technological developments since the first edition was published in 1998. Two new chapters have been added to assess the potential of electronic media for materials development. These chapters include an overview of the technologies available, as well as individual case studies and activities.
This book identifies the many facets of culture that influence second language learners and teachers. The paperback edition identifies the many facets of culture that influence second language learners and teachers. It addresses the impact of culture on learning to interact, speak, construct meaning, and write in a second language, while staying within the sociocultural paradigms specific to a particular language and its speakers. By providing a comprehensive introduction to research from other disciplines on the interaction between language and culture, this volume offers an important contribution to the field of second language acquisition.
This book challenges the orthodox approach to the teaching of second language listening, which is based upon the asking and answering of comprehension questions. The book's central argument is that a preoccupation with the notion of 'comprehension' has led teachers to focus upon the product of listening, in the form of answers to questions, ignoring the listening process itself. The author provides an informed account of the psychological processes which make up the skill of listening, and analyses the characteristics of the speech signal from which listeners have to construct a message. Drawing upon this information, the book proposes a radical alternative to the comprehension approach and provides for intensive small-scale practice in aspects of listening that are perceptually or cognitively demanding for the learner. Listening in the Language Classroom was winner of the Ben Warren International Trust House Prize in 2008.
O'Malley and Chamot review the literature on learning strategies, describe and classify learning strategies in second language learning, and discuss why learning is affected in a positive manner when such strategies are used. The authors present instructional models for learning-strategy training that teachers can apply to their own classes. The material is based on current research in second language acquisition and cognitive theory.
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 maximize 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. Usiing Verbal Protocols in Language Test Validation aims to provide potential practitioners with the background to the technique and a good understanding of what is entailed in using VPA in the 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 collection of original papers by researchers working in the field which comprehensively addresses the area of second language academic listening. This collection of original papers comprehensively addresses the area of second language academic listening. The papers are grouped under five broad headings. The first section provides an overview of research relevant to second language lecture comprehension. The second analyses aspects of the cognitive processes involved in listening comprehension. In the third section, the object of the comprehension process is examined, and in the fourth, ethnographic approaches are explored by extending the concept of listening comprehension to place it in the wider context of 'the culture of learning'. In the final section, the theory of second language listening comprehension is related to practical pedagogic concerns. Each section is preceded by an accessible introduction and the book as a whole provides detailed coverage of important aspects of academic listening phenomena.
From Corpus to Classroom summarises and makes accessible recent work in corpus research, focusing particularly on spoken data. It is based on analysis of corpora such as CANCODE and Cambridge International Corpus, and written with particular reference to the development of corpus-informed pedagogy. The book explains how corpora can be designed and used, and focuses on what they tell us about language teaching. It examines the relevance of corpora to materials writers, course designers and language teachers and considers the needs of the learner in relation to authentic data. It shows how the answers to key questions such as 'Is there a basic, everyday vocabulary for English?', 'How should idioms be taught?' and 'What are the most common spoken language chunks?' are best explored by means of a clearer understanding of the workings of language in context.
This book provides a rich and accessible account of genre studies by a world-renowned applied linguist. The hardback edition discusses today's research world, its various configurations of genres, and the role of English within the genres. Theoretical and methodological issues are explored, with a special emphasis on various metaphors of genre. The book is full of carefully worded detail and each chapter ends with suggestions for pedagogical practice. The volume closes with evaluations of contrastive rhetoric, applied corpus linguistics, and critical approaches to EAP. Research Genres provides a rich and scholarly account of this key area.
Over the last 20 years vocabulary research has grown from a Cinderella subject to a position of some importance. Vocabulary is now considered integral to just about every aspect of language knowledge and is a lively and vital area of research and innovation. With this development have come standard and widely-used tests, such as vocabulary size and lexical richness measures, and commonly accepted metaphors, such as the mental lexicon as a web of words. Less widely known outside academic circles, however, is the extensive work on learners' lexis and the utility, reliability and validity of the tests we use to measure and investigate it. This volume brings together contributions from internationally-renowned researchers in this field to explain much of the background to study in this area. It introduces to a wider audience the concerns, the newest approaches and developments in the field of vocabulary research and testing.
An examination of how language functions in CLIL, based on a corpus of classroom interactions. Drawing on their wide experience as CLIL educators and researchers, the authors explore data collected in real CLIL classrooms from two interrelated perspectives: the CLIL classroom as an interactional context for developing language and content, and the genres and registers through which the meanings of the different academic subjects are enacted. From the analysis of this corpus of data, the authors provide a rich description of how CLIL students' language works and may be expected to develop. Also available separately as a paperback.
El conocimiento de lenguas extranjeras no solo constituye un derecho inherente al ser humano y una necesidad para el avance y la integración de las distintas sociedades, sino que la educación plurilingüe es también un medio para alcanzar el principio de tolerancia y respeto por los derechos humanos. En el caso de la Comunidad Valenciana, con una larga tradición en educación bilingüe por la convivencia de dos lenguas oficiales, existe un vacío bibliográfico en cuanto a la introducción del inglés como tercera lengua dentro del sistema educativo. Partiendo de esta base, el objetivo principal de la presente investigación es conocer la opinión del profesorado en las provincias de Valencia, Alicante y Castellón sobre la práctica docente plurilingüe actual en las aulas. Para ello, se ha llevado a cabo un estudio descriptivo a través de una encuesta administrada a docentes en activo en distintos niveles educativos en la Comunidad Valenciana: infantil, primaria y secundaria. Se espera que los resultados obtenidos sirvan para entender cómo está siendo la implantación del sistema plurilingüe, sus puntos fuertes y débiles, así como su nivel de efectividad, y de esta forma poder contribuir al desarrollo y mejora del modelo plurilingüe vigente.
Genres across the Disciplines presents cutting edge, corpus-based research into student writing in higher education. Genres across the Disciplines is essential reading for those involved in syllabus and materials design for the development of writing in higher education, as well as for those investigating EAP. The book explores creativity and the use of metaphor as students work towards becoming experts in the genres of their discipline. Grounded in the British Academic Written English (BAWE) corpus, the text is rich with authentic examples of assignment tasks, macrostructures, concordances and keywords. Also available separately as a paperback.
This volume examines theoretical foundations, empirical research, and pedagogical implementations of focus on form. Traditional language teaching can result in limited fluency, whereas communicative approaches tend to produce fluency with less accuracy. This book presents a potential solution to this dilemma. The paperback edition respects students' "internal linguistic syllabus" by drawing their attention to problematic linguistic features during communicative activities, thus providing an alternative to methodologies that treat accuracy and fluency separately. This volume examines theoretical foundations, empirical research, and a range of possible pedagogical implementations.
A volume concerned with best practice in blended learning for language teaching. The Cambridge Guide to Blended Learning for Language Teaching makes the case that it is pedagogy, rather than technology, that should underpin the design of blended learning programmes. The book is organised into five sections: Connecting Theories and Blended Learning; Implications for Teaching; Rethinking Learner Interaction; Case Studies; The Future of Blended Learning. With its research-informed and practitioner-focused approach, this book is ideal for language teachers and language centre managers looking to broaden their understanding of pedagogy and blended learning. It will also be of interest to anyone working on blended learning course design or delivering teacher training courses.
Teacher Language Awareness (TLA) is an area of increasing interest to those involved in language teacher education. This book provides an introduction to the nature of TLA, assesses its impact upon teaching and its potential impact on learning. The book focuses specifically on grammar. It aims to encourage teachers and others involved in language education to think more deeply about the importance of TLA ad to adopt a more principled approach to the planning of those parts of their programmes assosciated with it.
Materials Development in Language Teaching aims to help readers apply current theoretical principles and research findings to the practical realities of developing and exploiting classroom materials. The authors also suggest new ideas and directions in materials development, which readers can pursue for themselves. This book is accessible to readers with little previous experience in the field, and is essential reading for all those involved in developing materials for language teaching. In the second edition of this highly popular title, each chapter has been comprehensively revised and updated to take into account both recent research and the significant technological developments since the first edition was published in 1998. Two new chapters have been added to assess the potential of electronic media for materials development. These chapters include an overview of the technologies available, as well as individual case studies and activities.
This book identifies the many facets of culture that influence second language learners and teachers. The paperback edition identifies the many facets of culture that influence second language learners and teachers. It addresses the impact of culture on learning to interact, speak, construct meaning, and write in a second language, while staying within the sociocultural paradigms specific to a particular language and its speakers. By providing a comprehensive introduction to research from other disciplines on the interaction between language and culture, this volume offers an important contribution to the field of second language acquisition.
This book challenges the orthodox approach to the teaching of second language listening, which is based upon the asking and answering of comprehension questions. The book's central argument is that a preoccupation with the notion of 'comprehension' has led teachers to focus upon the product of listening, in the form of answers to questions, ignoring the listening process itself. The author provides an informed account of the psychological processes which make up the skill of listening, and analyses the characteristics of the speech signal from which listeners have to construct a message. Drawing upon this information, the book proposes a radical alternative to the comprehension approach and provides for intensive small-scale practice in aspects of listening that are perceptually or cognitively demanding for the learner. Listening in the Language Classroom was winner of the Ben Warren International Trust House Prize in 2008.
O'Malley and Chamot review the literature on learning strategies, describe and classify learning strategies in second language learning, and discuss why learning is affected in a positive manner when such strategies are used. The authors present instructional models for learning-strategy training that teachers can apply to their own classes. The material is based on current research in second language acquisition and cognitive theory.
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 maximize 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. Usiing Verbal Protocols in Language Test Validation aims to provide potential practitioners with the background to the technique and a good understanding of what is entailed in using VPA in the 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 collection of original papers by researchers working in the field which comprehensively addresses the area of second language academic listening. This collection of original papers comprehensively addresses the area of second language academic listening. The papers are grouped under five broad headings. The first section provides an overview of research relevant to second language lecture comprehension. The second analyses aspects of the cognitive processes involved in listening comprehension. In the third section, the object of the comprehension process is examined, and in the fourth, ethnographic approaches are explored by extending the concept of listening comprehension to place it in the wider context of 'the culture of learning'. In the final section, the theory of second language listening comprehension is related to practical pedagogic concerns. Each section is preceded by an accessible introduction and the book as a whole provides detailed coverage of important aspects of academic listening phenomena.
From Corpus to Classroom summarises and makes accessible recent work in corpus research, focusing particularly on spoken data. It is based on analysis of corpora such as CANCODE and Cambridge International Corpus, and written with particular reference to the development of corpus-informed pedagogy. The book explains how corpora can be designed and used, and focuses on what they tell us about language teaching. It examines the relevance of corpora to materials writers, course designers and language teachers and considers the needs of the learner in relation to authentic data. It shows how the answers to key questions such as 'Is there a basic, everyday vocabulary for English?', 'How should idioms be taught?' and 'What are the most common spoken language chunks?' are best explored by means of a clearer understanding of the workings of language in context.
This book provides a rich and accessible account of genre studies by a world-renowned applied linguist. The hardback edition discusses today's research world, its various configurations of genres, and the role of English within the genres. Theoretical and methodological issues are explored, with a special emphasis on various metaphors of genre. The book is full of carefully worded detail and each chapter ends with suggestions for pedagogical practice. The volume closes with evaluations of contrastive rhetoric, applied corpus linguistics, and critical approaches to EAP. Research Genres provides a rich and scholarly account of this key area.
Over the last 20 years vocabulary research has grown from a Cinderella subject to a position of some importance. Vocabulary is now considered integral to just about every aspect of language knowledge and is a lively and vital area of research and innovation. With this development have come standard and widely-used tests, such as vocabulary size and lexical richness measures, and commonly accepted metaphors, such as the mental lexicon as a web of words. Less widely known outside academic circles, however, is the extensive work on learners' lexis and the utility, reliability and validity of the tests we use to measure and investigate it. This volume brings together contributions from internationally-renowned researchers in this field to explain much of the background to study in this area. It introduces to a wider audience the concerns, the newest approaches and developments in the field of vocabulary research and testing.
An examination of how language functions in CLIL, based on a corpus of classroom interactions. Drawing on their wide experience as CLIL educators and researchers, the authors explore data collected in real CLIL classrooms from two interrelated perspectives: the CLIL classroom as an interactional context for developing language and content, and the genres and registers through which the meanings of the different academic subjects are enacted. From the analysis of this corpus of data, the authors provide a rich description of how CLIL students' language works and may be expected to develop. Also available separately as a paperback.
El conocimiento de lenguas extranjeras no solo constituye un derecho inherente al ser humano y una necesidad para el avance y la integración de las distintas sociedades, sino que la educación plurilingüe es también un medio para alcanzar el principio de tolerancia y respeto por los derechos humanos. En el caso de la Comunidad Valenciana, con una larga tradición en educación bilingüe por la convivencia de dos lenguas oficiales, existe un vacío bibliográfico en cuanto a la introducción del inglés como tercera lengua dentro del sistema educativo. Partiendo de esta base, el objetivo principal de la presente investigación es conocer la opinión del profesorado en las provincias de Valencia, Alicante y Castellón sobre la práctica docente plurilingüe actual en las aulas. Para ello, se ha llevado a cabo un estudio descriptivo a través de una encuesta administrada a docentes en activo en distintos niveles educativos en la Comunidad Valenciana: infantil, primaria y secundaria. Se espera que los resultados obtenidos sirvan para entender cómo está siendo la implantación del sistema plurilingüe, sus puntos fuertes y débiles, así como su nivel de efectividad, y de esta forma poder contribuir al desarrollo y mejora del modelo plurilingüe vigente.
Genres across the Disciplines presents cutting edge, corpus-based research into student writing in higher education. Genres across the Disciplines is essential reading for those involved in syllabus and materials design for the development of writing in higher education, as well as for those investigating EAP. The book explores creativity and the use of metaphor as students work towards becoming experts in the genres of their discipline. Grounded in the British Academic Written English (BAWE) corpus, the text is rich with authentic examples of assignment tasks, macrostructures, concordances and keywords. Also available separately as a paperback.
This volume examines theoretical foundations, empirical research, and pedagogical implementations of focus on form. Traditional language teaching can result in limited fluency, whereas communicative approaches tend to produce fluency with less accuracy. This book presents a potential solution to this dilemma. The paperback edition respects students' "internal linguistic syllabus" by drawing their attention to problematic linguistic features during communicative activities, thus providing an alternative to methodologies that treat accuracy and fluency separately. This volume examines theoretical foundations, empirical research, and a range of possible pedagogical implementations.
A volume concerned with best practice in blended learning for language teaching. The Cambridge Guide to Blended Learning for Language Teaching makes the case that it is pedagogy, rather than technology, that should underpin the design of blended learning programmes. The book is organised into five sections: Connecting Theories and Blended Learning; Implications for Teaching; Rethinking Learner Interaction; Case Studies; The Future of Blended Learning. With its research-informed and practitioner-focused approach, this book is ideal for language teachers and language centre managers looking to broaden their understanding of pedagogy and blended learning. It will also be of interest to anyone working on blended learning course design or delivering teacher training courses.