Planning and Task Performance in a Second Language

The LL&LT monograph series publishes monographs as well as edited volumes on applied and methodological issues in the field of language pedagogy. The focus of the series is on subjects such as classroom discourse and interaction; language diversity in educational settings; bilingual education; language testing and language assessment; teaching methods and teaching performance; learning trajectories in second language acquisition; and written language learning in educational settings.

Planning and its role in task-based performance are of both theoretical interest to second language acquisition (SLA) researchers and of practical significance to language teachers. In the case of SLA researchers, planning is important because it links in with the current interest in the role of attention in language learning.

The purpose of this book is to bring together a series of articles on the nature of planning and its effects on task-based performance in laboratory, classroom and testing contexts. The idea for the book originated in a colloquium on this topic given at AILA Conference in Singapore in December 2002. Papers given by Bygate and Samuda, Elder and Iwashita, Ellis and Fanguan, and Sanguran were subsequently developed into chapters for this book.

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Teaching and Learning in early years

This book is an attempt to distil the current state of knowledge about the ways in which young children (up to the age of 7) develop and learn, to show how educational principles derive from this, and to illustrate these principles with practical examples drawn from work in early years classrooms. It is principally directed at early years trainee teachers, but it is also hoped that it contains material which will be of interest to the whole range of teaching and non-teaching professionals and other adults concerned with the education of young children. .

There follows a section on basic principles and approaches, which discusses issues related to the management of the early years learning environment. This is followed by a series of chapters concerned with play and language, the basics of early years education. A further section examines the wider curriculum of the arts, maths, technology and science, the social sciences and physical development. Each chapter examines basic principles and illuminates them with inspiring, practical examples of classroom, outdoor and out-of-school activities.

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Memory, Psychology and Second Language Learning

This book aims to review the work done in psychology and linguistics on language processing and to relate it to the learning of a second language. It is aimed at the student language teacher who will also be studying aspects of linguistics such as phonology alongside psychological theories and theories of language learning. It is an attempt to pull together the two disciplines with a specific focus on the second language learner. It will also be of interest to postgraduate students in offering them a wide variety of sources for further research. It is also, I hope, an aid for the experienced teacher who is interested in putting current theories of language learning and teaching into a new perspective. In particular, the inclusion of the neuropsycholical evidence for established psycholinguistic models provides a interesting perspective for the more general reader who is interested in language processing.

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Understanding Language Teaching; From Method to Postmethod

“Break the pattern which connects the items of learning,” warned the celebrated anthropologist, Gregory Bateson, “and you necessarily destroy all quality” (1979, p. 8, italics in original). He issued this warning in a letter to his fellow regents of the University of California, complaining about American schools that teach the students “almost nothing of the pattern which connects” (p. 8). The pattern which connects. That’s what this book is all about. Not the so profound pattern that governs the evolution and ecology of all life on earth, but the more mundane pattern that connects the various elements of learning, teaching, and teacher education in the narrow field of teaching English to speakers of other languages. It may appear to be inappropriate or even anticlimactic, to link the concern for an understanding of the ecological macrocosm with the concern for an understanding of the pedagogical microcosm. But the whole point, if we follow the Batesonian argument, is that the elements constituting each are indeed interconnected in ways that may not be readily apparent.

The book is divided into three parts: (1) Language, Learning, and Teaching, (2) Language Teaching Methods, and (3) Postmethod Perspectives. I make it a point to highlight the underlying links within and between the parts in order to bring out the pattern which connects.

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Stephen D Krashen "Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning"

This book is concerned with what has been called the "Monitor Theory" of adult second language acquisition. Monitor Theory hypothesizes that adults have two independent systems for developing ability in second languages, subconscious language acquisition and conscious language learning, and that these systems are interrelated in a definite way: subconscious acquisition appears to be far more important.

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