Recognizing that teachers are often involved in planning and developing courses as part of their responsibilities, the authors have set out to describe the factors which must be considered in constructing courses and materials. They cover: the fact-finding stage, establishing realistic goals, surveying existing programmes, realizing goals through instructional plans, selecting the shape of the syllabus, and considerations involved in constructing communicative curricula and syllabuses. All of these aspects are considered against current theories of language learning. Examples of different...

The communicative approach is changing the face of foreign language teaching. It provides an introduction to communicative language teaching for practising classroom teachers. The author gives a single coherent account of the basic communicative ideas, emphasizing those aspects most important in the classroom so that teachers can integrate the new ideas into their own familiar methods. He stresses that a knowledge of grammar remains essential for effective communication.

Richards explains how effective language teaching involves a network of interactions between curriculum, methodology, teachers, learners, instructional materials. Each chapter discusses and examines the theoretical and practical dimensions of a central issue in language teaching. Topics covered include the nature of effective teaching, self-monitoring in teacher development, language and content, and teaching listening, speaking, reading and writing. Richards presents key issues in an accessible and highly readable style, and shows how teachers and teachers-in-training can be involved in the...

Discourse and Language Education is part of the Cambridge Language Teaching Library series. Discourse analysis describes how such communication is structured, so that it is socially appropriate and linguistically accurate. This book gives practical experience in analyzing discourse and the study of written language. The analyses show the ways we use linguistic signals to carry out our discourse goals and the differences between written and spoken language as well as across languages. This text can be used as a manual in teacher education courses and linguistics and communications courses. It...

Language Test Construction and Evaluation describes the process of language test construction clearly and comprehensively. Each chapter deals with one stage of the test construction process; from drafting initial test specifications, to reporting test scores, test validation and washback. In addition, current practice in the examining of English as a Foreign Language by different examining boards is reviewed in order to compare testing principles with present test practice. The focus is on the practical: it does not assume a statistical background but explains and demystifies the procedures...

This text is about what really happens in language classrooms. This paperback edition is about what really happens in language classrooms, both those in which language is the topic of instruction and those where it functions primarily as the medium of instruction. In this collection of 19 original papers, the authors utilize a variety of research methods, with an emphasis on the collection and analysis of data. Chapters investigate such issues as language-related anxiety, curriculum renewal, classroom interaction, teachers' on-line decision-making, and sociopolitical concerns affecting life...

This text introduces an area of educational research, "teacher learning," as it applies to the teaching of languages. The paperback edition introduces a new field of educational research called "teacher learning," as it applies to the teaching of languages. Seventeen original articles, based on studies done in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia, provide examples of theory and research into teacher learning and of the role that previous experience, social context, and professional training play in the process.

This volume examines the area of second language vocabulary studies from three broad perspectives: description, acquisition and pedagogical context. The book's 15 chapters are grouped together to achieve a balance between descriptions of what vocabulary is and how it behaves, how the mind learns new vocabulary and then uses it when it is learned, and pedagogical issues of teaching and testing L2 vocabulary.

This volume is a collection of nine original papers exploring dimensions of individual difference in language learning from narrative and biographical perspectives. This book focusses on language learners as people, not as abstract individuals. By listening to the voices of the learners themselves and setting them in the context of their personal and social lives it advances our understanding of the enormous tasks faced by second and foreign language learners. It contains new and previously unpublished research which fills a gap in the existing literature. It also demonstrates how...

Beyond Training examines the nature of second language teacher development and how teachers' practices are influenced by their beliefs and principles. It seeks to move discussion of language teacher development beyond the level of "training," which reflects a technical view of specific teaching practices. Instead, it takes a more holistic approach to teacher development built on the notion of the teacher as critical and reflective thinker. The argument pursued throughout is that teacher education needs to engage teachers not merely in the mastery of techniques, but in an exploration of the...