Language Learning And Teacher Education

This volume explores the defining element in the work of language teacher educators: language itself. The book is in two parts. The first part holds up to scrutiny concepts of language that underlie much practice in language teacher education yet too frequently remain under-examined. These include language as social institution, language as verbal practice, language as reflexive practice, language as school subject and language as medium of language learning.The chapters in the second part are written by language teacher educators working in a range of institutional contexts and on a variety of types of program including both long and short courses, both pre-service and in-service courses, and teacher education practice focusing variously on metalinguistic awareness for teachers, language improvement, and classroom communication. The unifying factor is that collectively they illuminate how language teacher educators research their practice and reflect on underlying principles.

Language teacher education is widely identified as one of the most important areas that needs addressing in order to improve early language instruction, yet research into teacher education for early language teachers remains relatively sparse. This volume responds to this gap by compiling studies with diverse methodological tenets from a wide range of geographical and educational contexts around the world. The volume aims to enhance understanding of early language teacher education as well as to address the need to prepare early language teachers and assist them in their professional development. The chapters focus on the complexity of teacher learning, innovations in mentoring and teacher supervision, strategies in programme development and perceptions, and knowledge and assessment in early language learning teacher education. The volume offers comprehensive coverage of the field by addressing various aspects of teacher education in different languages. The contributions highlight examples of research into current practice in the professional enhancement of early language learning teachers, but with an emphasis on the implications for practitioners.

Compared with STEM fields, foreign language (FL) education and second language acquisition have only slowly embraced open education and the new knowledge ecologies it produces. FL educators may have been hesitant to participate in the open education movement due to a lack of research which investigates the benefits and challenges of FL learning and teaching in open environments. This book contextualizes open education in FL learning and teaching via an historical overview of the movement, along with an in-depth exploration of how the open movement affects FL education beyond the classroom context; fills the research void by exploring aspects of open second language learning and teaching across a range of educational contexts; and illustrates new ways of creating, adapting and curating FL materials that are freely shared among FL educators and students. This book is open access under a CC BY ND licence.

Current Issues in Second/Foreign Language Teaching and Teacher Development: Research and Practice represents a collection of selected papers from the 17th World Congress of the International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA), which was held in August 2014 in Brisbane, Australia. The volume comprises 18 chapters presenting current research projects and discussing issues related to second language acquisition, teaching and teacher education in a variety of contexts from around the world. This collection of research papers will be of use to both new and seasoned researchers in the field of applied linguistics. Teacher educators, language teachers and language policy makers will find this volume equally useful as the papers address current issues in language education.

This text provides a detailed account of current approaches to the education of teachers of second languages. The paperback edition provides a detailed account of current approaches to the education of teachers of second languages. It offers valuable ideas on the observation and supervision of classrooms, on self-evaluation by teachers, and on teaching itself. Its emphasis reflects the shift in orientation from teacher training to teacher education, in which teachers are involved in developing their own theories of teaching, understanding the nature of teacher decision making, and developing strategies for critical self-evaluation. The book is aimed at teachers, teacher educators, and workshop facilitators involved both in pre-service and in-service education of teachers of second and foreign languages.

This volume demonstrates how various methodologies and tools have been used to analyze the multidimensional, dynamic, and complex nature of identities and professional development of language teachers in digital contexts that have not been adequately examined before. It therefore offers new understandings and conceptualizations of language teacher development and learning in varied digital environments. The collection of pieces illustrates a field that is recognizing that digital environments are the contexts of teacher learning, not simply the object of it, and that issues of identity and agency are central to that learning. As an excellent resource on digital technologies, CALL, gaming, or language teacher identity and agency, the book can be used as a textbook in various applied linguistics courses and graduate seminars.

This casebook is designed to broaden L2 teacher knowledge, thinking, and practice with regard to making language and learning accessible to all students. Language teachers are especially accountable for promoting socially just, inclusive, decolonizing, and multicultural pedagogical practices and curricula; at this critical juncture in history, this book is intended to raise language teachers’ awareness of the importance of critically examining and reflecting on the intersectionality of language education and inclusive pedagogical practices. Language teacher educators can use this text in their courses and workshops to build on and extend theoretical foundations, while making critical practical connections. The 12 cases presented here cover a range of inclusive language teaching and learning issues that practitioners are likely to face in their respective teaching contexts. All the cases are based on real-life dilemmas faced by practitioners in the field and have been informed by discussions with pre-service and in-service student teachers. The cases represent a range of classroom contexts: K–12 ESL/sheltered English immersion, world language, and post-secondary EAP; private, charter, and public schools; and urban and suburban settings. The cases are accompanied by pre- and post-problem sets and in-class discussion questions. This volume applies the case-based pedagogy often used in some fields to that of second language teacher education to encourage pre- and in-service teachers to grapple with the types of dilemmas and decisions teachers confront every day. The cases here are not intended as exemplars of practice to be emulated or illustrations of existing theories; instead, they are problem-based narratives that resist clear-cut answers or solutions and remain open ended to stimulate further investigation and reflection. The goal is to mimic the complexity of the classroom where teachers confront a range of pedagogical and learning challenges, and the ensuing experience requires critical, real-time decisions that demand keen professional discernment.

This book is designed to provide practical applications of sociocultural theory with regard to teachers’ roles in second language education. By providing specific examples of teachers’ roles in the classroom, the book aims to help researchers, teacher educators, and classroom teachers make clear connections between practice and theory in second language learning. All the studies in this edited book are conducted in the PreK-16 classroom setting. Each chapter presents rigorous research analysis within the framework of sociocultural theory and provides rich descriptions of teachers’ roles. The book is intended to be used in teacher education courses. The primary audience of the book is in-service teachers who work with second language learners (SLLs) in their classrooms including ESL/Bilingual classrooms or regular classrooms. Since many SLLs receive instructions both in the ESL/Bilingual classrooms and in the regular classrooms, it is important to discuss teachers’ roles in both settings. The secondary audience of the book is teacher educators and researchers who work with pre-service and in-service teachers in teacher education. This book will be an excellent resource for book study groups and practitioners working with professional learning communities.

This book uncovers the challenges posed by globalization to Asian jurisdictions in English language teaching and teacher education.

This book explores the implications of technology-mediated project-based language learning for CALL teacher development, focusing on the role of video-based instruction in elucidating challenges and opportunities to promote learner creativity in the language classroom. The volume builds on existing literature on project-based language learning by extending the focus on the affordances of machinima, digital video created by teachers and learners to capture experience in 3D immersive games or virtual worlds. Drawing on data from a large-scale research project featuring case studies that examine different facets of CALL teacher education, the book calls attention to language learning and teaching strategies that encourage both learners and teachers to develop innovative approaches in the language classroom and how such approaches promote the integration of lifelong learning skills alongside traditional linguistic competencies. Offering a dynamic contribution to the growing literature on the interface of language learning and teaching and technology, this book will appeal to students and researchers in applied linguistics and language and education, as well as those interested in the latest developments in CALL.