The Dynamics of English Instruction


Book Description




Opening Dialogue


Book Description

Opening Dialogue examines the effects of classroom discourse on learning in 8th- and 9th-grade literature classes, with broad implications for all grade levels and subjects. Dozens of schools and thousands of students participated in this study, the largest in the field. Contents: Dialogic Instruction: When Recitation Becomes Conversation * The Big Picture: Language and Learning in Hundreds of English Lessons * A Closer Look at Authentic Interaction: Profiles of Student, Teacher Talk in Two Classrooms * What's a Teacher to Do?




Usage-Based Dynamics in Second Language Development


Book Description

This book honours the contribution of Marjolijn Verspoor to the development and implementation of dynamic usage-based (DUB) approaches in second language (L2) research and pedagogy. With chapters written by renowned experts in the field, the book addresses the dynamics of language, language learning and language teaching from a usage-based perspective. The book contains both theory and empirical work: the initial theoretical chapters present cutting-edge thinking in relation to both the scope of DUB theory and its applications, providing conceptual perspectives from cognitive grammar and linguistics, thinking-for-speaking (TFS), and Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST) approaches, united by their shared underpinnings of language as a dynamic system of conventionalized routines. The second half of the volume showcases state-of-the-art methodologies to study dynamic trajectories of language learning, empirical investigations into the above-mentioned theoretical concepts, and innovative classroom implementations of DUB language pedagogy.




Group Dynamics in the Language Classroom


Book Description

Working, learning and living in groups is a central feature of humans, and therefore the study of groups called group dynamics is a vibrant academic field, overlapping diverse areas such as psychology, sociology, business studies and political science. It is also highly relevant to language education because the success of classroom learning is very much dependent on how students relate to each other, what the classroom climate is like, what roles the teacher and the learners play and, more generally, how well students can cooperate and communicate with each other. This innovative book addresses these issues and offers practical advice on how to manage language learner groups in a way that they develop into cohesive and productive teams. Educators interested in communicative language teaching will particularly welcome this book as a useful guide in their day-to-day teaching practice.




The Dynamics of Writing Instruction


Book Description

Describes a structured approach to teaching writing to middle and high school students, features structured sequences of activities for teaching fictional, experience, argumentation, comparison and contrast, and definition essays, and research papers, and includes principles for creating a writing curriculum.




Exploring the Dynamics of Second Language Writing


Book Description

A collection of 13 original articles, this book is intended to provide a series of discussions about multiple aspects of second language writing, presenting chapters that collectively address a range of issues that are important to new teachers at the post-secondary level. The chapters provide scholarly visions, insight, and interpretation oriented toward explaining the field of teaching academic writing to non-native speakers. The book is designed to provide foundational content-knowledge in this area, each chapter authored by recognized experts in the field. Throughout the chapters, presentation and review of scholarship is presented primarily in the interest of understanding how such knowledge directly or potentially impart teaching, making this a pedagogically relevant book. In addition to helping train new teachers, the book will serve as an updated reference book for practicing teachers and scholars to consult.




The Dynamics of Language Learning


Book Description

Focusing on future directions for English and reading research, the papers presented in this book examine the complex interplay of skills, processes, and classroom conditions that influence the development of children's competence in reading, writing, and the language arts. The titles and authors of the essays are as follows: (1) "Reading and Writing Relations: Assumptions and Directions" (James Flood and Diane Lapp); (2) "The Cognitive Base of Reading and Writing" (Stephen B. Kucer); (3) commentaries by Alan Purves and Julie Jensen; (4) "Thought and Language, Content and Structure in Language Communication" (Diane Lemonnier Schallert); (5) "The Design of Comprehensible Text" (Robert C. Calfee); (6) commentaries by Judith Langer and Robert J. Tierney; (7) "The Shared Structure of Oral and Written Language and the Implications for Teaching Writing, Reading, and Literature" (Miles Myers); (8) "Oral Language, Literacy Skills, and Response to Literature" (David K. Dickinson); (9) commentaries by David Dillon and Roselmina Indrisano; (10) "Research into Classroom Practices: What Have We Learned and Where Are We Going?" (Bryant Fillion and Rita S. Brause); (11) "Classroom Practices and Classroom Interaction during Reading Instruction: What's Going On?" (M. Trika Smith-Burke); (12) commentaries by Arthur N. Applebee and Dolores Durkin; (13) "An Examination of the Role of Computers in Teaching Language and Literature" (Bertram C. Bruce); (14) "Technology, Reading, and Writing" (Lawrence T. Frase); (15) commentaries by Johanna DeStefano, and Edmund J. Farrell; (16)"Organizing Student Learning: Teachers Teach What and How" (Jane Hansen); (17) "Assessing the Process, and the Process of Assessment, in the Language Arts" (Peter Johnston); (18) commentaries by Jerome C. Harste and P. David Pearson; (19) "Constructing Useful Theories of Teaching English from Recent Research on the Cognitive Processes of Language" (M. C. Wittrock); (20) "Themes and Progressions in Research in English" (John T. Guthrie); and (21) "Retrospect and Prospect" (James R. Squire). (JD)




Investigating Dynamic Relationships Among Individual Difference Variables in Learning English as a Foreign Language in a Virtual World


Book Description

This book focuses on the dynamic relationships among individual difference (ID) variables (i.e., willingness to communicate, motivation, language anxiety and boredom) in learning English as a foreign language in the virtual world Second Life. The theoretical part provides an overview of selected issues related to the four ID factors in question (e.g., definitions, models, sources, types, empirical investigations). The empirical part reports the findings of a research project which aimed to examine the changing nature of WTC, motivation, boredom and language anxiety experienced by six English majors during their visits to the said virtual world, the main contributors to the changes in the levels of the constructs under investigation, as well as their relationships. The book closes with the discussion of directions for further research as well as pedagogical implications.