Motivating Learners, Motivating Teachers provides tools to enable teachers to improve their own motivation, and thereby that of their students.

A new approach to motivation, focusing on the concept of ‘vision’. Drawing on visualisation research in sports, psychology and education, the authors describe powerful ways by which imagining future scenarios can promote motivation to learn a language. The book offers a rich selection of motivational strategies to help students ‘see’ themselves as competent language users, to experience the value of knowing a foreign language and, ultimately, to invest effort into learning it. It also explores how to re-ignite language teacher enthusiasm, how to re-kindle it when it may be waning and how to guard it when it is under threat.

Key features

• Provides a wide range of techniques and principles to build classroom motivation through vision.
• Discusses links between the motivation of language teachers and learners.
• Include a rich selection of strategies for inspiring and protecting language teachers’ motivation and vision.

This volume explores the importance of meaningful action for language teaching and learning, paying tribute to the enduring influence of Earl Stevick.

With contributions from 19 ELT authors and influential academics, Meaningful Action draws upon and acknowledges the huge influence of Earl Stevick on language teaching. Stevick’s work on ‘meaningful action’ explored how learners can engage with activities that appeal to sensory and cognitive processes, ensuring that meaning is constructed by the learner’s internal characteristics, and by their relationship with other learners and the teacher. This edited volume focuses on meaningful action in three domains: learner internal factors and relationships between the people involved in the learning process; classroom activity; and diverse frameworks supporting language learning.

Key features

• Places aspects of language teaching practice and research in the context of Earl Stevick’s influence.
• Brings together experts in the field of applied linguistics and language teaching to explore the theme of meaningful action in a variety of ways.
• Illustrates how teaching and researching, practice and theory, can co-construct one another in many fascinating narratives.

This book provides a theoretically based approach to the integration of language and content in primary and secondary contexts.

Drawing on their wide experience as CLIL educators and researchers, the authors explore data collected in real CLIL classrooms from two interrelated perspectives: the CLIL classroom as an interactional context for developing language and content, and the genres and registers through which the meanings of the different academic subjects are enacted. From the analysis of this corpus of data, the authors provide a rich description of how CLIL students’ language works and may be expected to develop.

Key features

• Looks at how language is used in the teaching and learning of different content subjects, including a focus on genre, grammar and lexis.
• Discusses how assessment techniques can be designed to encourage a more genuine integration of subject-matter knowledge and language skill.
• Equips readers with ways of scaffolding learners’ language and content-subject development in their own contexts.

Materials Development in Language Teaching Second edition suggests new ideas and directions in materials development, which readers can pursue for themselves. It is accessible to readers with little previous experience in the field and is essential reading for all those involved in developing materials for language teaching. For the second edition, each chapter has been comprehensively revised and includes two chapters that assess the potential of electronic media for materials development. This book will be of interest to teachers everywhere who wish to look more closely at the relationship between their teaching materials and their language classes.

Key features

• Draws on the combined expertise of the top researchers and practitioners in the field.
• New chapters include an overview of the technologies available, as well as individual case studies and activities.
• Five sections cover data collection, materials writing, materials evaluation, electronic delivery of materials, and ideas for materials development.

Values, Philosophies, and Beliefs in TESOL lays a solid foundation upon which teachers can construct their philosophy of teaching, and it prepares them to make a well-informed statement of their beliefs – something that is increasingly called for in contexts such as employment interviews and contract renewals. It chronicles the many influences and developments that have helped shape the language teaching profession today. With its interdisciplinary perspective, this extraordinary book lays a foundation on which teachers can construct their own philosophy of teaching.

Key features

• Provides interdisciplinary perspectives on the development of the language teaching profession.
• Chapters trace the origins and evolution of language teaching.
• The book situates second language teaching in a historical context.

The book’s central argument is that a preoccupation with the notion of ‘comprehension’ has led teachers to focus upon the product of listening, in the form of answers to questions, ignoring the listening process itself. The author provides an informed account of the psychological processes which make up the skill of listening and analyses the characteristics of the speech signal from which listeners have to construct a message. Drawing upon this information, the book proposes a radical alternative to the comprehension approach and provides for intensive small-scale practice in aspects of listening that are perceptually or cognitively demanding for the learner.

Key features

• Provides the language teacher with a clear set of goals for listening instruction and redresses a number of mistaken beliefs.
• Discusses the nature of the speech signal and the problems it poses for second language listeners.
• Proposes a new methodology for the teaching of listening based upon small-scale practice of target problem areas.

Lessons from Good Language Learners provides a reference base, addresses theoretical issues and considers pedagogical implications. It identifies gaps in our current understanding and suggests useful research initiatives and it considers how all of this relates to successful language learning by unique individuals in a variety of situations. The book is divided into 2 sections: the first deals with learner variables and has chapters on such topics as age, culture, motivation, personality and aptitude. The second covers learning variables such as vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, reading and listening. The writers include many well-established names such as Anna Chamot, Paul Nation and Andrew Cohen as well as some of the best representatives of the new generation of applied linguists.

Key features

• Considers practical applications making it useful for both practising or trainee teachers.
  Addresses theoretical issues and suggests areas for ongoing research making it a valuable resource for researchers and students.
• Commemorates Joan Rubin’s 1975 article which considered what the good language learner can teach us.

Teacher Language Awareness (TLA) is an area of increasing interest to those involved in language teacher education. This book provides an introduction to the nature of TLA, assesses its impact upon teaching and its potential impact on learning. The book focuses specifically on grammar. It aims to encourage teachers and others involved in language education to think more deeply about the importance of TLA ad to adopt a more principled approach to the planning of those parts of their programmes associated with it.

Key features

• Systematic integration of theory and practice, with many classroom examples and excerpts from teacher interviews.
• Focuses on the challenges faced by teachers from a range of backgrounds and with varying amounts of experience.
• Includes questions for reflection and discussion at the end of each chapter.

Teachers can be promoted to supervisory positions for a variety of reasons, such as excellent teaching skills, ‘people skills,’ or seniority. Seldom are teachers made supervisors because they have had specific professional preparation for the role. Using case studies of actual teaching situations, the book explores such issues as teacher evaluation, autonomy, authority and awareness and attitude. It contains a wealth of practical detail on gathering data and providing feedback in post-observation conferences with teachers. A variety of cases, together with a comprehensive review of the literature, offers valuable insights into the dynamic, interactive process of language teacher supervision. This book is a rich resource for teachers preparing to hold supervisory positions and for practicing language teacher supervisors alike.

Key features

• Uses case studies of real-life teaching situations.
• Follow-up discussion questions help readers reflect on the content.
• Suggestions for further reading support teachers to learn more.

This book provides a comprehensive account of conversation in English and its implications for the ELT classroom. After a general overview and definition of conversation it provides the reader with a systematic description of conversational English, from the vocabulary of conversation, to grammar, discourse and genre. This is followed by an informed account of the development of conversation in both first and second language acquisition. It then describes a range of methodological approaches, procedures and techniques for teaching conversation in English. On this basis, an integrated approach to the teaching of conversation is provided, along with practical classroom applications.