Evaluating Second Language Vocabulary And Grammar Instruction

Providing a much-needed critical synthesis of research on teaching vocabulary and grammar to students of a second or foreign language, this book puts the research into perspective in order to distil recommendations for language teaching. Boers evaluates a comprehensive range of both well-established and lesser-known research strands and classroom practices to draw out the most effective instructional approaches to teaching words, multiword expressions and grammar patterns. Chapters discuss learning as a by-product of communicative activities, language-focused instruction, diverse types of exercises, mnemonic techniques and more, with a view to building bridges between the available research on such instructional approaches and how they are commonly implemented in actual language courses and textbooks. This book helps teachers make research-informed decisions regarding their instructional approaches to words, phrases and patterns, and direct researchers to specific areas in need of further inquiry. Boers not only demonstrates how research findings can inform effective teaching, but also calls for a deeper appreciation on the part of researchers of the realities of the teaching profession, making this a worthwhile text for preservice teachers, teacher educators, graduate students and scholars.

Accessible to experts and non-experts alike, this text is a comprehensive entry to teaching and learning vocabulary in ESL and EFL contexts. Firmly grounded in research, it presents frameworks and methods for teaching vocabulary to English L2 speakers. Overviewing key topics as well as providing in-depth research analyses and critiques, Zwier and Boers address all major areas of vocabulary pedagogy and instruction. Organized in four parts, chapters cover the nature of vocabulary and strands of vocabulary research; curricular approaches; and techniques and activities. Readers are introduced to key topics, including teaching multiword expressions, assessment, discourse, and instruction at different levels. Each chapter includes questions, prompts, and activities to foster discussion. A foundational textbook for courses on L2 instruction and teacher-training courses, it is an essential text for students and scholars in TESOL and Applied Linguistics, and provides the pedagogical grounding future English L2 teachers need to effectively teach vocabulary.

Practice is a recurring and popular theme in language education. However, the concepts of practice and automatization have recently received renewed theoretical and practical interest and are increasingly being explored from the skill acquisition theory and cognitive psychology perspectives. In this volume, leading scholars discuss the optimal types, amounts, and schedules of practice for specific language structures and skills, as well as for various types of learners and learning contexts, to facilitate second language development. They illuminate how practice is instantiated for specific groups of teachers and learners in diverse institutionalized contexts, such as foreign language curriculum development, intelligent computer-assisted language learning systems, task-based language teaching, and study abroad. Furthermore, original methodological syntheses of extant research on practice and automatization are presented, along with guides for conducting empirical research on these topics. Practice and Automatization in Second Language Research: Perspectives from Skill Acquisition Theory and Cognitive Psychology is a valuable resource and reference for graduate students and researchers in the field of SLA and applied linguistics.

"The Cambridge Guide to Second Language Assessment aims to present in one volume an up-to-date guide to the central areas of assessing the second language performance of English by speakers of other languages. This volume provides snapshots of significant issues and trends that have shaped language assessment in the past and highlights the current state of our understanding of these issues"--

This volume links corpus research to classroom practice and critically assesses how the integration of a corpus-informed methodology affects pedagogical choices, teaching materials and classroom activities. Focusing on the language classroom, and drawing on examples from English, French, German and Hungarian, this book demonstrates that such methodology is applicable to languages with very different properties. Drawing on both larger, general and smaller, more specialised corpora, including both spoken and written data, this volume: presents the key features of natural language according to corpus linguistics, establishing principles and methods to observe and practice natural-sounding language use suggests the characteristics of a coherent, corpus-informed methodology and contrasts this with existing methodologies explores ways in which this methodology can enhance language learning and discusses the types of activities that are most effective explains how this methodology be integrated into teacher training Bridging the long-persisting gap between corpus-informed language teaching research and applied classroom reform, this book is key reading for researchers in applied linguistics and language pedagogy, as well as teacher trainers and practitioners.

New Perspectives on Grammar Teaching in Second Language Classrooms brings together various approaches to the contextualized teaching of grammar and communicative skills as integrated components of second language instruction. Its purpose is to show from both theoretical and practical perspectives that grammar teaching can be made productive and useful in ESL and EFL classrooms. In this text: *First-rate scholars approach the teaching of grammar from multiple complementary perspectives, providing an original, comprehensive treatment of the topic. *Discourse analysis and research data are used to address such pedagogical areas as grammatical and lexical development in speaking, listening, reading, and writing. *The communicative perspective on ESL and EFL instruction that is presented provides ways for learners to enhance their production skills, whereas the meaning-based grammar instruction can supplement and strengthen current methodology with a communicative focus. This volume is intended as a foundational text for second language grammar pedagogy courses at the advanced undergraduate and master's levels.

Typically, books on evaluation in the second and foreign language field deal with large programs and often result from large?scale studies done by the authors. The challenge for ordinary second and foreign language classroom teachers is that they must extrapolate techniques or strategies for evaluation from a very large scale to a much smaller scale, that of the course. At the same time, classroom teachers are responsible for outcomes of their courses and need to do evaluation on a scale and for needs of their choosing. Evaluating Second Language Courses is designed for classroom teachers who are dealing with a single course, and who wish to understand and improve some aspect of their course.

"Counter Responsibility for planning language teaching programs now carries with it a strong element of accountability. Evaluation of the whole process of course design, development, and implementation is therefore a necessary area of activity for course designers, language planners, and researchers. This book brings together accounts of recent work in this increasingly important field and will be a valuable resource both for those already engaged in evaluation and for those in training. Part One presents a review of the literature, covering past developments in the wider field of educational evaluation, as well as specifically in second language education. Part Two contains a series of eight original case-studies, written by scholars involved in evaluations in widely divergent settings. The focus in each case is on how the evaluator addresses the difficulties central to each study, and the findings are also included. The final Part Three provides practical guidance for evaluators, offering suggestions about how to set up and carry out evaluations in any given setting."--Publisher's website.