East Asian Perspectives On Silence In English Language Education

Silence is a key pedagogical issue in language education. Seen by some as a space for thinking and reflection during the learning process, for others silence represents a threat, inhibiting target language interaction which is so vital during second language acquisition. This book eschews stereotypes and generalisations about why so many learners from East Asia seem either reluctant or unable to speak in English by providing a state-of-the art account of current research into the complex and ambiguous issue of silence in language education. The innovative research included in this volume focuses on silence both as a barrier to successful learning and as a resource that may in some cases facilitate language acquisition. The book offers a fresh perspective on ways to facilitate classroom interaction while also embracing silence and it touches on key pedagogical concepts such as teacher cognition, the role of task features, classroom interactional approaches, pedagogical intervention and socialisation, willingness to communicate, as well as psychological and sociocultural factors. Each of the book’s chapters include self-reflection and discussion tasks, as well as annotated bibliographies for further reading.

Including illustrative real-life case studies, this book draws on empirical data to explore how silence can be embraced in teaching.

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

Examines the major issues of language planning and policy in Japan, Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and Vietnam, particularly those relating to the selection of official language, script, and written language.

This book focuses on the emotional complexity of language teaching and how the diverse emotions that teachers experience while teaching are shaped and function. The book is based on the premise that teaching is not just about the transmission of academic knowledge but also about inspiring students, building rapport with them, creating relationships based on empathy and trust, being patient and most importantly controlling one’s own emotions and being able to influence students’ emotions in a positive way. The book covers a range of emotion-related topics on both positive and negative emotions which are relevant to language teaching including emotional labour, burnout, emotion regulation, resilience, emotional intelligence and wellbeing among others. These topics are studied within a wide range of contexts such as teacher education programmes, tertiary education, CLIL and action research settings, and primary and secondary schools across different countries. The book will appeal to any student, researcher, teacher or policymaker who is interested in research on the psychological aspects of foreign language teaching.

How and why is silence used interculturally? Approaching the phenomenon of silence from multiple perspectives, this book shows how silence is used, perceived and at times misinterpreted in intercultural communication. Using a model of key aspects of silence in communication – linguistic, cognitive and sociopsychological – and fundamental levels of social organization – individual, situational and sociocultural - the book explores the intricate relationship between perceptions and performance of silence in interaction involving Japanese and Australian participants. Through a combination of macro- and micro- ethnographic analyses of university seminar interactions, the stereotypes of the 'silent East' is reconsidered, and the tension between local and sociocultural perspectives of intercultural communication is addressed. The book has relevance to researchers and students in intercultural pragmatics, discourse analysis and applied linguistics.

This volume contains a selection of articles that were originally presented at the Applied Linguistics and Language Teaching International Conference and Exhibition (ALLT 2022), held at Zayed University, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in March 2022. The articles in this volume represent the diverse backgrounds, experiences, and research interests of the ALLT presenters. They cover a range of theoretical, empirical, and pedagogical practices with a strong emphasis on language teaching. While most of the papers focus on English language, the findings and lessons are applicable to the teaching of any language. This makes the volume an invaluable resource, addressing important aspects of contemporary research topics and the pedagogy of language teaching.