New Perspectives New Directions In Foreign Language Education

The five essays in this volume address broad trends and issues in foreign language education. "Bandwagons Revisited: A Perspective on Movements in Foreign Language Education" (Frank M. Grittner) suggests that the bandwagons flourish because of lack of standardization and centralized authority in American education. Characteristics and results of popular methods and movements are discussed. In "Language Instruction in the U.S.: Policy and Planning" (June K. Phillips), opposing views and philosophies affecting public language policy are discussed and problems in explicit and implicit language policy are examined. "Sketching the Crisis and Exploring Different Perspectives in Foreign Language Curriculum" (Dale L. Lange) looks at internal problems in foreign language education, including relationships with other fields, simplistic application of theory to practice, the role of metatheory, the cyclical nature of the field, internal professional debates, and stresses under which foreign language professionals operate. The student and his relationship to the foreign learning process is the subject of "From Student to Learner: Style, Process, and Strategy" (Vicki Galloway, Angela Labarca). Finally, "Reforming Foreign and Second Language Teacher Education" (Gilbert A. Jarvis, Sheryl V. Taylor) focuses on the need for improved teacher education in the face of current professional realities and new conceptualizations of the teacher's role. (MSE)

New Directions for Research in Foreign Language Education brings together contributions by reputed scholars that examine the challenges, opportunities, and benefits of teaching and learning foreign languages. With a particular focus on languages other than English, the book looks at the socio-political dimension of language learning and teaching and the need to re-theorize multilingualism for our age. The volume includes a range of perspectives, from language teaching as an act of reconciliation to language learning across the lifespan, from innovations in assessment and curriculum to critical appraisals of pedagogy and textbook materials. Each chapter presents a clear case study drawn from diverse contexts to illustrate the different concerns of the contributors. The book is a valuable resource for all students, teachers, teacher educators and researchers who share an interest in researching multilingualism and the different facets of teaching and learning foreign languages.

New Directions in English Language Teaching: Issues,Practices, Challenges attempts to create a comprehensive vision of critical and culturally relevant English teaching methodologies at the cusp of the 21st century. The present book is multi-voiced. It includes perspectives from classroom teachers, teacher educators and researchers in language and literacy, positioned to respond to recent changes in national conversations about literacy, learning and assessment. These vividly situated authors also recognise the rapidly changing demographics in colleges, the changing nature of teaching English in the digital age, and increasing demands for teaching pedagogies. This book is critically placed at the juncture of numerous directions in novel techniques. At all times, education is a political act, and colleges are embedded with a socio-culture reality that benefits some at the expense of others. Therefore the approach advocated through many of the chapters is one of critical literacy where English students gain reading and writing skills and proficiency with digital technologies that allow them to become more able, discerning, and empowered consumers and producers of texts.

New Directions in Second Language Pragmatics brings together varying perspectives in second language (L2) pragmatics to show both historical developments in the field, while also looking towards the future, including theoretical, empirical, and implementation perspectives. This volume is divided in four sections: teaching and learning speech acts, assessing pragmatic competence, analyzing discourses in digital contexts, and current issues in L2 pragmatics. The chapters focus on various aspects related to the learning, teaching, and assessing of L2 pragmatics and cover a range of learning environments. The authors address current topics in L2 pragmatics such as: speech acts from a discursive perspective; pragmatics instruction in the foreign language classroom and during study abroad; assessment of pragmatic competence; research methods used to collect pragmatics data; pragmatics in computer-mediated contexts; the role of implicit and explicit knowledge; discourse markers as a resource for interaction; and the framework of translingual practice. Taken together, the chapters in this volume foreground innovations and new directions in the field of L2 pragmatics while, at the same time, ground their work in the existing literature. Consequently, this volume both highlights where the field of L2 pragmatics has been and offers cutting-edge insights into where it is going in the future.

Foreign Language Teaching in Asia and Beyond

New Directions in Teaching English: Reimagining Teaching, Teacher Education and Research attempts to create a comprehensive vision of critical and culturally relevant English teaching at the dawn of the 21st century. This book is multi-voiced. It includes perspectives from classroom teachers, teacher educators, and researchers in language and literacy, positioned to respond to recent changes in national conversations about literacy, learning, and assessment. These variously situated authors also recognize the rapidly changing demographics in schools, the changing nature of literacy in the digital age, and the increasing demands for literacy in the workplace. This book is critical. At all times education is a political act, and schools are embedded within a sociocultural reality that benefits some at the expense of others. Therefore the approach advocated through many of the chapters is one of critical literacy, where English students gain reading and writing skills and proficiency with digital technologies that allow them to become more able, discerning, and empowered consumers and producers of texts.

Language teaching approaches, methods and procedures are constantly undergoing reassessment. New ideas keep emerging as the growing complexity of the means of communication and the opportunities created by technology put language skills to new uses. In addition, the political, social and economic impact of globalisation, the new demands of the labour market that result from it, the pursuit of competitiveness, the challenges of intercultural communication and the diversification of culture have opened new perspectives on the central role that foreign languages have come to play in the development of contemporary societies. This book provides an insight into the latest developments in the field and discusses the new trends in foreign language teaching in four major areas, namely methods and approaches, teacher training, innovation in the classroom, and evaluation and assessment.

Since it was first established in the 1970s the Applied Linguistics and Language Study series has become a major force in the study of practical problems in human communication and language education. Drawing extensively on empirical research and theoretical work in linguistics, sociology, psychology and education, the series explores key issues in language acquisition and language use. What the learner contributes is central to the language learning process. Learner Contributions to Language Learning provides a uniquely comprehensive account of learners' personal attributes, their thinking, their feelings, and their actions that have been shown to have an impact upon language learning. Containing specific chapters from leading names in the field, this book provides both a review of what has been discovered from previous research and identifies important future directions for research on learner contributions. It is a landmark volume setting the agenda for language learning research in the 21st century and it provides invaluable information for all those engaged in language teaching. The contributors to the volume are- Michael P. Breen Bonny Norton Anna Chamot Rebecca Oxford Rod Ellis Anna Pavlenko James P. Lantolf Anita Wenden Diane Larsen-Freeman