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This book aims to offer insights into cognitive, sociocultural and pedagogical aspects of foreign language learning and teaching. It focuses on different competences, such as communicative competence, intercultural competence and the autonomy of the language learner. A significant feature of this volume is that it bears the fruit of collaboration between researchers and practitioners on both sides of the Atlantic and, therefore, offers a variety of perspectives. The book is divided into four parts, focusing on the following four areas of research: sociocultural theory, communicative language teaching, intercultural competence and learner autonomy. The first chapter of each part covers theoretical issues by outlining the origins and development of a theory and explaining its core concepts. In the second chapter, theoretical, empirical and applied research is reviewed, and the implications for foreign language learning and teaching are discussed. The third chapter of each part is devoted to the application of the theories in focus. It presents either an example of a research project or an application of the theory in terms of developing materials and/or giving suggestions for good practice in the foreign language classroom.
List of contents
Contents: James P. Lantolf: An Overview of Sociocultural Theory - Howard Grabois: What Does SCT Research Reveal about Second Language Learning? - Steven L. Thorne: Cultural historical activity theory and the object of innovation - Sandra J. Savignon: Language, Identity, and Curriculum Design: Communicative Language Teaching in the 21st Century - Diane Musumeci: Research Insights and Communicative Language Teaching - Celeste Kinginger: Communicative Foreign Language Teaching Through Telecollaboration - Lies Sercu: Intercultural communicative competence in foreign language education. Integrating theory and practice - Lies Sercu: Researching the acquisition of intercultural communicative competence in a foreign language. Setting the agenda for a research area - Lieve de Wachter/Annemie Decavele: The acquisition of intercultural communicative competence. Some guidelines for better results on the 'intercultural competence' level - Eus Schalkwijk/Kees van Esch/Adri Elsen/Wim Setz: Learner Autonomy in Foreign Language Learning and Teaching - Kees van Esch/Adri Elsen: Effecting Change: research into Learner Autonomy in Foreign Language Learning and Teaching - Socrates Lingua Learner Autonomy Group: Learner Autonomy in Initial Foreign Language Teacher Education.
About the author
The Editors: Kees van Esch is Associate Professor in Spanish and Applied Linguistics and a teacher trainer at ILS, the graduate school of education of Nijmegen University. He obtained his doctorate from this university in 1987. The areas of interest in his research are applied linguistics and the didactics of foreign languages in general and of Spanish in particular. A former publication of Kees van Esch at Peter Lang is
A Framework for Freedom. Learner Autonomy in Foreign Language Teacher Education.
Oliver St. John is an Englishman now working in Sweden where he is responsible for teacher education within the department of modern languages at the University of Gävle. He is currently doing an M.A. in language pedagogy at Uppsala University and is also involved in writing language skills development teaching materials for secondary school pupils.
