Kategoria BISAC: Language Arts & Disciplines >> Study & Teaching

Foreign Language Input: Initial Processing presents the most comprehensive study to date of the starting point of second language acquisition. Its focus is on the language input that learners receive and what they actually do with this input. The empirical study detailed in the book follows a methodology in which all of the language input provided to the learners from the moment of first exposure is controlled, recorded and transcribed. This input is then quantitatively compared to the learners' performance on language tasks administered at various time intervals up to 8 hours after first...

Research on Processing Instruction has so far investigated the primary effects of Processing Instruction. In this book the results of a series of experimental studies investigating possible secondary and cumulative effects of Processing Instruction on the acquisition of French, Italian and English as a second language will be presented. The results of the three experiments have demonstrated that Processing Instruction not only provides learners the direct or primary benefit of learning to process and produce the morphological form on which they received instruction, but also a secondary...

This volume bridges the knowledge gap between second language acquisition researchers and second language pedagogy professionals in its focus on a topic of mutual interest: input. The reader-friendly contributions from seasoned researchers including Stephen Krashen, Bill VanPatten and new voices offer a wide range of existing and new perspectives on the matter of input. A rare feature of the book is that it includes extensive coverage by experts including James Flege and Alene Moyer of the acquisition of the sound system of a second language, where input seems to matter most. Those who are...

Foreign Language Teachers and Intercultural Communication: An International Investigation reports on a study that focused on teachers' beliefs regarding intercultural competence teaching in foreign language education. Its conclusions are based on data collected in a quantitative comparative study that comprises questionnaire answers received from teachers in seven countries: Belgium, Bulgaria, Poland, Mexico, Greece, Spain and Sweden. It not only creates new knowledge on the variability, and relative consistency, of today's foreign language teachers' views regarding intercultural...

This book offers an in-depth study of the poetics of creative writing as a subject in the dramatically changing context of practice as research, taking into account the importance of the subjectivity of the writer as researcher. It explores creative writing and theory while offering critical antecedents, theoretical directions and creative interchanges. The book narrows the focus on psychoanalysis, particularly with regard to Lacan and creative practice, and demonstrates that creative writing is research in its own right. The poetics at stake neither denotes the study or the techniques of...

This book offers an insight into the dynamics and complexities of learning and teaching English as a foreign language at primary level. Taking a Dynamic Systems Theory perspective, the chapters present the findings of longitudinal research undertaken in Croatia into the development of English in young learners. The book includes both qualitative and quantitative research and provides insights into internal individual learner factors and external micro and macro contextual factors which impact English learner development. Importantly, it tackles the unique position of English in today's...

This book introduces an approach to understanding and measuring working memory components and functions in second language learning, processing and development. It presents comprehensive, thorough and updated reviews of relevant literatures from cognitive sciences and applied linguistics. Drawing on multidisciplinary research, the book advocates a conceptual framework for integrating working memory theories with second language acquisition theories. An innovative theoretical model is also presented, which illuminates research studies investigating the distinctive roles of phonological and...

This book explores second language (L2) learning, teaching and assessment from a comprehensible input (CI) perspective. This focus on the role of input is important for deepening our understanding of interactions between the learner, teacher and the environment as well as of the nature of the learning, teaching and assessment processes. The book takes a blended approach that promotes the intertwining of theory, research and practice in L2 pedagogy and assessment and aims to address the commonly used concept of CI and its role in L2 education. Content includes a comprehensive discussion of...

This book introduces an innovative collection of easy-to-use computer programs that have been developed to measure and model vocabulary knowledge. The book aims to help researchers discover new instruments for lexical analysis, and provides a theoretical framework in which studies with such tools could be conducted. Each of the programs comes with a short manual explaining how to use the program, an example of a published paper that uses the program and a set of questions that readers can develop into proper projects. The programs can be used in real research projects and have the...

This book discusses literacy development in heritage language speakers and presents the results of four different quantitative studies that investigate the transfer of literacy skills in bi- and multilingual language development. The empirical studies focus on different populations of pupils, most of them located in various parts of Switzerland, and emphasise the potential residing in shared or transferred resources between their heritage languages and the languages spoken in the region to which their family has immigrated. The goal of all studies was to gain an understanding of the...

In a field like L2 vocabulary teaching and learning where interest and research studies are burgeoning, this book offers a useful collection of papers that contains new ways of investigating vocabulary development, techniques for vocabulary teaching such as the Focus on Form hypothesis, word associations, and the use of concordance data. In addition, it tackles recent areas of analysis such as the treatment of vocabulary in teaching materials--an area of almost complete neglect in the literature. The book is divided into three parts. Part one provides the overview and deals with the...

This book provides one of the first detailed examinations of the problems of nature-based tourism development in peripheral areas. A diverse range of environments is used to illustrate the challenges and difficulties of managing nature-based tourism resources. A central theme throughout the book is the degree of opportunity that nature-based tourism provides as the basis for peripheral region development.

Measuring Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition provides an examination of the background to testing vocabulary knowledge in a second language and in particular considers the effect that word frequency and lexical coverage have on learning and communication in a foreign language. It examines the tools we have for assessing the various facets of vocabulary knowledge such as aural and written word recognition, the link with word meaning, and vocabulary depth. These are illustrated and the scores they produce are demonstrated to provide normative data. Vocabulary acquisition from course...

Until now, the picture painted of French second language learning in Canada has tended to focus on successful French immersion. This volume offers a broader representation, in response to the demographic changes that have made the French language classroom a more complex place. Focusing on inclusion and language maintenance, the chapters discuss how a multilingual population can add the two official languages to their repertoire whilst maintaining their languages of origin/heritage; how the revitalization of Indigenous languages can best be supported in the language classroom, and how...

This book brings together a variety of voices - students and teachers, journal editors and authors, writers from the global north and south - to interrogate the notion of risk as it applies to the production of academic writing. Risk-taking is viewed as a productive force in teaching, learning and writing, and one that can be used to challenge the silences and erasures inherent in academic tradition and convention. Widening participation and the internationalisation of higher education make questions of language, register, agency and identity in postgraduate writing all the more pressing,...