Productive Foreign Language Skills for an Intercultural World

The volume offers a fresh perspective on 21st century language instruction. It discusses approaches to teaching, contexts of instruction, testing and assessment, curriculum development and using technology in the classroom, and focuses on developing speaking and writing skills, intercultural communicative competence, and cultural knowledge.

The past two decades have created quantitatively higher and qualitatively different demands for foreign language skills. Learners' needs, expectations and contexts of language use have undergone radical and far-reaching transformations. This collection of essays by experienced educators, teacher trainers and researchers from diverse linguistic, cultural and professional settings offers a fresh perspective on the aspects and ways of teaching skills which are crucial to contemporary language instruction, especially at the more advanced stages, but which have oftentimes been unjustly neglected in the classroom. The book discusses issues ranging from approaches to teaching, contexts of instruction, testing and assessment to curriculum development and technology in the classroom.

Autorentext

Michal B. Paradowski is an assistant professor at the Institute of Applied Linguistics, University of Warsaw. He also works as a teacher trainer and an ELT consultant for television, and has been an invited speaker at over 70 scientific and language-teaching events in Europe, America, Asia and Africa. His interests include second and third language acquisition research, cross-linguistic influence, corpus linguistics, the effects of formal instruction, and current issues and controversies in foreign language teaching.

Zusammenfassung
"In sum, I found the book very interesting, relevant, and accessible for anyone interested specifically in writing and speaking skills, and intercultural competence, and recommend it as a great resource to everybody interested in foreign language learning and teaching." (Kristin Lange, LINGUIST List 27.2940)

Inhalt

Contents: Do Thi Quy Thu/Richard B. Baldauf Jr.: Discourse Markers in Native and Learner Spoken English: Implications for Pedagogy - Michal B. Paradowski/Klaudia Dmowska/Dagmara Czasak: Conquering Foreign Language Anxiety Related to Speaking - Agnieszka Dzieciol-Pedich: Challenges of Developing Speaking Skills in Business English Courses at the Tertiary Level - Veronica-Diana Armasu: Using Tasks to Enhance Oral Proficiency in a Multilingual Working Environment - Miya Komori-Glatz: Rethinking Productive Foreign Language Skills for English-Medium Business Programmes - Gregory L. Thompson: Engaging Second Language Learners: Developing Cultural Knowledge and Language Proficiency through Service Learning - Constanza Tolosa/Helen Villers/Martin East: Intercultural Possibilities of Foreign Language Writing Exchanges Online - Chiu-Hui (Vivian) Wu: Exploring Practices for Teaching Intercultural Communication: A Case Study of Three EFL Teachers at a College in Taiwan - Isabel Alonso-Belmonte/María Fernández-Agüero: Practical Proposals for the Development of Intercultural Communicative Competence in EFL: What Textbooks won't Tell you - Ewa Maciejewska-Stepien: Towards the Design of an Intercultural Syllabus - Ewa Bandura: European Portfolio for Student Teachers of Languages and the Development of Professional Awareness: An Intercultural Approach Perspective - Sabina A. Nowak: Students' Evaluations of Writing Curriculum at Tertiary Level - Agnieszka Lenko-Szymanska: Abundance, However, is not Always Desirable: Connectors in Polish EFL Learners' Texts - Behzad Ghonsooly/Seyyed Mohammad Reza Adel: The Effects of Modes of Discourse and L1 on the Writing Quality of Iranian Advanced EFL Learners.