Bücher der Reihe Second Language Learning and Teaching

This book highlights the importance of individual learner differences in learning English as a foreign language and reports the findings of a study which investigated the impact of two personality traits, which are, openness to experience and ambiguity tolerance, on target language attainment among Polish secondary school students. The book provides an exhaustive overview of the theoretical issues and existing research related to personality, emphasizing the two traits under investigation, openness, and ambiguity tolerance, which are the focus of the empirical study reported later in the book. The empirical investigation explored relationships between openness to experience and ambiguity tolerance, as well as their impact on attainment in learning English as a foreign language. Moreover, it also aimed to shed light on the link between these traits and students¿ assessments (i.e., self-assessment and school grades). The findings of the study provide a basis for proposing specific profiles of foreign language learners with different levels of openness and ambiguity tolerance.

This book presents a selection of empirical papers dealing with second and multiple language acquisition, in which qualitative research methodology is employed. Although the main focus is on qualitative methods, some of the papers demonstrate the complementarity of quantitative and qualitative approaches in studying language acquisition.

In response, many professional associations also provide a wide range of professional development activities for their teacher members. The book will be of interest to language teachers, graduate students, teacher educators and researchers, educational leaders and policymakers, as well as teacher associations.

The book analyses a variety of topics and current issues in linguistics and literary studies, focusing especially on such aspects as memory, identity and cognition. It then investigates a variety of practices of language users, language learners and translators, such as the use of borrowings from hip-hop and slang.

This book provides an overview of pronunciation teaching and learning practices in secondary schools, providing insights into secondary school learners' needs, expectations and motivation regarding the importance of learning English and particularly English pronunciation.

This edited collection explores the conjunction of multiculturalism and the self in literature and culture studies, and brings together essays by prominent researchers interested in literature and culture whose critical perspectives inform discussions of specific examples of multicultural contexts in which individuals and communities strive to maintain their identities. The book is divided into two major parts, the first of which comprises literary representations of multiculturalism and discussions of its impasses and impacts in fictional circumstances. In turn, the second part primarily focuses on culture at large and real-life consequences. Taken together, the two complementary parts offer an illuminating and well-rounded overview of representations of multiculturalism in literature and contemporary culture from a variety of critical perspectives.

Six papers in Part 3, which refers to questions of Identity and Cultural Stereotypes, both in general language and in literature, discuss identity in native and migration contexts and take up motifs of journey and migration, as well as social and cultural stereotypes and prejudice in transforming contexts.

This volume provides descriptions and interpretations of social and cognitive phenomena as well as processes that emerge at the interface of languages and cultures in the context of contrastive and contact linguistics and media discourse.

The contributors employ a diverse range of theoretical standpoints - from close reading to deconstruction, from historically informed approaches to linguistic analysis - and thus offer a nuanced panorama of these issues, especially from the nineteenth century onwards.

This book investigates and analyzes the way in which factors such as communication apprehension, self-perceived communicative competence and group dynamics influence the communicative behavior of a foreign-language learner.

The book comprises a selection of 14 papers concerning the general theme of cultural conceptualizations in communication and translation, as well as in various applications of language.Ten papers in first part Translation and Culture cover the topics of a cognitive approach to conceptualizations of Source Language ¿ versus Target Language ¿ texts in translation, derived from general language, media texts, and literature.The second part Applied Cultural Models comprises four papers discussing cultural conceptualizations of language in the educational context, particularly of Foreign Language Teaching, in online communication and communication in deaf communities.

The book offers a new approach to the study of Alice Munro's fiction. Part Three consists of an essay on didactic aspects of Munro's fiction and of several interviews with teachers of Canadian literature who have included stories by Munro in their syllabi.

This edited collection explores the conjunction of multiculturalism and the self in literature and culture studies, and brings together essays by prominent researchers interested in literature and culture whose critical perspectives inform discussions of specific examples of multicultural contexts in which individuals and communities strive to maintain their identities. The book is divided into two major parts, the first of which comprises literary representations of multiculturalism and discussions of its impasses and impacts in fictional circumstances. In turn, the second part primarily focuses on culture at large and real-life consequences. Taken together, the two complementary parts offer an illuminating and well-rounded overview of representations of multiculturalism in literature and contemporary culture from a variety of critical perspectives.

This book investigates the three pivotal points oftext for foreign language acquisition: reception, construction and deconstruction. InPart One, the focus is on various aspects of text reception, such as developingliteracy, text interest, and perceptions of the academic register or theassessment of spoken language in educational contexts.

PartTwo brings together papers related to teacher awareness of second language instruction that focus on conversational styles, fostering interculturalpragmatics, teacher job satisfaction, the development of instructionalmaterials and challenges of teacher training in different contexts.

This book introduces readers to the principles of a fairlynew branch of psychology - positive psychology - and demonstrates how they canbe applied in the context of second language acquisition in a naturalenvironment and in instructed foreign language (FL) learning.

This book presents an overview of revisiting the assessment of language abilities. It also showcases how the measurement of such constructs can result in negative or positive washback and how outcomes might be conducive to repercussions that decide on the future of many stakeholders. The 23 chapters were selected among tens of chapters received from different contexts that addressed the issue of revisiting the assessment of language abilities, such as Tunisia, Ukraine, Algeria, Russia, KSA, Sudan, Egypt, Canada, Kurdistan, UK, USA, Iran, Turkey, etc. These contexts have highlighted the necessity to revisit the different constructs which should be assessed with a clear and straightforward foundation on students¿ learning objectives and their actual language ability. To do so, most of the chapters present hands-on use of relevant statistical tests that might serve in revisiting the construct definition both theoretically and operationally. Perhaps the sole and intricate question that the authors of these contributions ask is what it means to revisit the assessment of the construct of individualized language ability and how. In addition, the book accentuates the momentousness and significance of reflecting on test fairness and validation as the mainspring and backbone for democratization of assessment. This book appeals to a broad readership, such as English Language Teaching (ELT) practitioners, language teachers, students, testing organizations, policy-makers, test designers, writers of test specifications, testing experts, researchers, program evaluators, especially in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) as well as other international contexts.

This book offers several insights into cross-cultural and multilingual learning, drawing upon recent research within two main areas: Language Studies and Multilingual Language Learning/Teaching.

In Part One, emphasis is placed on challenges that second language education has to face, both those more general, dealing with language policy issues, and those more specific, concerned with instructional options in the language classroom.

This book presents recent investigations in foreign language teaching and learning. It covers a wide range of topics, from theoretical approaches to foreign language instruction to findings in empirical research in language learning and pedagogy.

The book contains contributions from practitioners and theoreticians who explore the pronunciation of English from various perspectives: phonetic, phonological, psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic. In accordance with the unifying theme of the volume, individual contributions investigate the characteristics of a foreign accent, its production and perception, study the development of methods and techniques in pronunciation teaching, evaluate their use in classroom materials and in the classroom itself, and investigate the conditions for second language learning and teaching from the perspective of learners and teachers. The book offers a unique combination of a scholarly research with practical applications, inspired over the years by the work of Professor W¿odzimierz Sobkowiak, who has researched pronunciation teaching and pioneered technology-oriented, corpus-based approaches to the study of English pronunciation in Poland.

This book presents a selection of empirical papers dealing with second and multiple language acquisition, in which qualitative research methodology is employed. Although the main focus is on qualitative methods, some of the papers demonstrate the complementarity of quantitative and qualitative approaches in studying language acquisition.

This book presents recent investigations in foreign language teaching and learning. It covers a wide range of topics, from theoretical approaches to foreign language instruction to findings in empirical research in language learning and pedagogy.

This book is a collection of essays on neglected aspects of the Great War.

The magic transformation of "your" money into "their" money is paralleled in contemporary media and culture by the centrality of transformation of one product to another as a media industry practice, as well as the transformation of bodies as a major theme both in the ensuing media products and in people's identity practices in daily life.

PartTwo brings together papers related to teacher awareness of second language instruction that focus on conversational styles, fostering interculturalpragmatics, teacher job satisfaction, the development of instructionalmaterials and challenges of teacher training in different contexts.

This collection gathers contributions from scholars from Poland and abroad addressing different facets of research into the processes of foreign-language and second-language learning and teaching as they transpire in a typical language classroom.

The present volume brings together papers devoted to the role of learner and teacher autonomy in the process of second and foreign language learning, which have been contributed by scholars from Poland and abroad.

In Part One, emphasis is placed on challenges that second language education has to face, both those more general, dealing with language policy issues, and those more specific, concerned with instructional options in the language classroom.

The book contains a selection of papers focusing on the idea of crossing boundaries in literary and cultural texts composed in English.