Language Identity, Learning, and Teaching in Costa Rica


Book Description

This edited collection provides a comprehensive and locally situated understanding of English language teaching from the perspective of dedicated and experienced language professionals and researchers in Costa Rica. The book uses a series of reflective sections that interconnect theory and practice in a non-English-dominant context in order to inform and transform pedagogical practices. The chapters depict a wide-ranging image of English language teaching and learning in the region, encouraging in-service teachers, TESOL specialists, and ELT scholars to critically reassess, rethink, and relearn teaching and learning as more than a political decision in an educational curriculum. Ultimately promoting the practice as dynamic, ever-changing, and culturally situated, the book will be highly relevant to researchers, academics, scholars, and faculty in the fields of teacher education, educational research, EFL, and modern foreign languages.




Female Leadership Identity in English Language Teaching


Book Description

Step into the lives of extraordinary women leaders in this groundbreaking volume. This compelling collection presents autoethnographies of twenty-five women leaders in English Language Teaching (ELT) from around the world. Grounded in key leadership theories and ELT research, these narratives examine the intersectionality of gender, race, culture, and transnational experiences in shaping leadership identities. Authors candidly share their triumphs and challenges, inspiring readers to embrace their own leadership potential and effect change in their communities and beyond. By articulating the personal, institutional, and global complexities, the narratives inform our understanding of how ELT teachers navigate the path to leadership. Contributors are: Tasha Austin, Lena Barrantes-Elizondo, Kisha Bryan, Quanisha Charles, May F. Chung, Ayanna Cooper, Tanya Cowie, Taslim Damji, Darlyne de Haan, Su Yin Khor, Sarah Henderson Lee, Gloria Park, Ana-Marija Petrunic, Doaa Rashed, Kate Mastruserio Reynolds, Teri Rose Dominica Roh, Mary Romney-Schaab, Amira Salama, Cristina Sánchez-Martín, Xatli Stox, Debra Suarez, Shannon Tanghe, Lan Wang-Hiles, Marie Webb and Amea Wilbur.




Postcolonial Challenges to Theory and Practice in ELT and TESOL


Book Description

Drawing on the underrepresentation of the Global South in global knowledge production with a focus on the existing inequalities, the book highlights the importance of postcolonial narratives within Global Southern epistemologies in English language teaching (ELT) and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). Chapters consider the epistemological landscapes of these fields, their dedication to English teaching and English-related topics, and the intersection of the coloniality of language and the supremacy of English worldwide. The book explores the type of discussion that is needed to advance a more nuanced understanding of sociopolitical circumstances and how they shape our academic practices and theorizations of ELT and TESOL. In doing so, chapters examine the current geopolitics of knowledge that are found in journal publishing, citing how it favours the Global North, and further exploring ways of decolonizing language practices, teaching approaches and research cultures. Calling for greater visibility and recognition of Southern ways of knowing within ELT and TESOL practice and research, the book will be an essential reading for scholars, researchers and students of TESOL, ELT, Applied Linguistics and multilingualism.




Second Language Identity in Narratives of Study Abroad


Book Description

Study abroad is now both an international industry and an experience that can have a deep impact on students' attitudes and approaches to second language learning. Narratives of Second Language Identity in Study Abroad brings together three important research areas by exploring the impact of study abroad on second language identities through narrative research. It outlines a new model of second language identity that incorporates a range of language and personal competencies. The three main dimensions of this model are explored in chapters that begin with students' study abroad narratives, followed by the authors' in-depth analysis. Further chapters use narratives to assess the impact of programme type and individual difference. Arguing that second language identity development is one of the more important outcomes of study abroad, the book concludes with recommendations on how study abroad programmes can best achieve this outcome.




The Intercultural Dimension of Foreign Language Teaching, Learning and Assessment: Theory and Practice


Book Description

When foreign language teaching, learning, and evaluation are viewed through an intercultural lens, it becomes clear that language has evolved into a process that includes intercultural interaction and understanding, rather than simply teaching words and grammatical rules. In this context, culture, which is an inherent part of language, is an important factor that enriches and adds meaning to language learning. The intercultural dimension of foreign language teaching aims to provide students with context and communication skills that extend beyond language. Understanding that language is more than just words and grammatical rules allow students to better understand the societies and cultures in which the language is used. The intercultural dimension in language teaching informs students about the social norms, traditions, behavioural patterns, and values of the societies in which the language is spoken. This allows the language learner to interact more effectively with his or her contacts while also developing culturally sensitive communication skills. Furthermore, the intercultural dimension of language learning provides an opportunity to understand how the language is used in real life. Language is more than just the act of putting words together; it also includes the ability to understand how to interact within a community using those words. For example, teaching students cultural elements such as everyday expressions, traditional rituals, expressions, and slang enriches their practical language use.The intercultural dimension in assessment processes takes into account students' language proficiency not only through grammar and vocabulary, but also how they communicate in a cultural context. Exams and performance assessments can be tailored to evaluate students' cultural sensitivity, expressiveness, and language skills in a cultural setting. The current curriculum and the design of new curricula are critical in language learning. Curriculum design is a planning and organizing process that guides educational processes. Curriculum design and intercultural competence play an important role in enriching educational programs and providing students with a global perspective. When intercultural competence is integrated into this design, students have the opportunity to learn about elements of different cultures such as art, literature, history, and language. This broadens students' perspectives and helps them understand cultural diversity. Integrating intercultural competence into curriculum design aims to help students develop intercultural communication skills. Aside from grammar and vocabulary, communication skills include intercultural sensitivity, empathy, and effective communication techniques. Intercultural communication skills are developed by giving students opportunities to interact with people from various cultures. Improving intercultural communication skills has become a key learning objective in today's globalized world. In the classroom, students can learn intercultural communication skills through a variety of effective practices. Intercultural discussions in the classroom, cultural exchange programs, culturally themed project studies, participation in cultural events, intercultural communication simulations, and intercultural sensitivity training are all effective studies that promote learning through experience while also strengthening cultural interaction in language teaching. These classroom practices are designed to provide students with the skills and awareness required for successful intercultural communication. This allows students to acquire not only language knowledge but also the social skills required for successful intercultural interaction. This book examines teaching, learning, and the intercultural dimension in language education, both theoretically and practically. The book, which includes original research, offers new perspectives for teachers by addressing developmental methods. We would like to thank the authors and experts who contributed to the present book. We'd like to thank the entire publishing house team for their contributions to publish this book.




Racialized Identities in Second Language Learning


Book Description

*Winner of the 2019 AAAL First Book Award* Racialized Identities in Second Language Learning: Speaking Blackness in Brazil provides a critical overview and original sociolinguistic analysis of the African American experience in second language learning. More broadly, this book introduces the idea of second language learning as "transformative socialization": how learners, instructors, and their communities shape new communicative selves as they collaboratively construct and negotiate race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and social class identities. Uju Anya’s study follows African American college students learning Portuguese in Afro-Brazilian communities, and their journeys in learning to do and speak blackness in Brazil. Video-recorded interactions, student journals, interviews, and writing assignments show how multiple intersecting identities are enacted and challenged in second language learning. Thematic, critical, and conversation analyses describe ways black Americans learn to speak their material, ideological, and symbolic selves in Portuguese and how linguistic action reproduces or resists power and inequity. The book addresses key questions on how learners can authentically and effectively participate in classrooms and target language communities to show that black students' racialized identities and investments in these communities greatly influence their success in second language learning and how successful others perceive them to be.




Handbook of Research on Socio-Cultural and Linguistic Perspectives on Language and Literacy Development


Book Description

The teacher’s role is to create opportunities that intrinsically motivate children to externalize their thoughts. Human beings have multiple means of expression: this is powerful when children have the opportunity to have a real voice. The realities of children’s experiences in their local communities are powerful resources for the language curriculum and help to create an understanding of the value the languages and cultures of children and teachers bring from a multicultural perspective. Thus, teachers can help children develop their cultural and linguistic identities to promote multiculturalism, multilingualism, and translingualism so they can thrive in a complex and changing world. The Handbook of Research on Socio-Cultural and Linguistic Perspectives on Language and Literacy Development approaches language and literacy development from a socio-cultural and linguistic perspective. This book offers global perspectives on language and literacy from international experts working with both children and educators. It offers readers a diversity of voices and experiences of professionals in the field that can inform their teaching and research. Covering topics such as critical literacy, emotional engagement, and multilingual resources, this major reference work is an indispensable resource for administrators and educators of both K-12 and higher education, pre-service teachers, teacher educators, biblio-therapists, librarians, researchers, and academicians.




Voluntourism and Language Learning/Teaching


Book Description

This edited volume extends current voluntourism theorizing by critically examining the intersections among various forms of work-leisure travel and language learning/teaching. The book’s contributors investigate volunteer tourism and its cognates such as working holidaymaking, international internships, and gap year labor, as discursive fields in which powerful ideas about language(s), their speakers, and pedagogical practices are propagated worldwide. The various authors’ chapters shed light on the hegemony of global English, the social consequences of linguistic commodification and neoliberal rationalities, the ways in which speaker identity positions can alter the exchange value of languages, and how language competencies are tied to power in the labor market, among related topics. This volume will be of interest to readers in Applied Linguistics, Critical Sociolinguistics, Educational and Linguistic Anthropology, Tourism and Leisure Studies, Migration and Mobility Studies, and Language Teaching and Learning.




Linguistic Counter-Standardization


Book Description

Language standardization is problematic because it imposes the dominant group’s linguistic variety as the only correct one and promotes the idea of unit thinking, i.e., seeing the world as consisting of bounded, internally homogeneous units. This volume examines intentional practices to subvert such processes of language standardization (what we call counter-standardization practices) in language education and other contexts. By suggesting alternative classroom pedagogies, language reclamation processes for indigenous populations, and discourses about (mis)pronunciation, this volume explores more liberatory approaches: the post-unit thinking of language.




Anti-Oppressive Education in Elite Schools


Book Description

"This book is a collection of essays that can easily be used for professional development purposes. It has multiple perspectives in term of author identities and positions within "elite" schools and blend of research and experience made accessible for practitioners"--