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Due to the pressures of globalization, American society increasingly needs citizens who can carry out Superior level functions in languages other than English. Instructors, researchers, and students of second language acquisition seek scholarly resources to help satisfy this demand. In this volume, leading experts in second language acquisition and language planning supply cutting-edge research on working memory and cognition and empirical studies of effective teaching. The theoretical and empirical work in these pages is complemented by descriptions of successful pedagogical practices that take students from the Advanced to the Superior levels and beyond. With examples ranging across a number of languages, including Russian, Chinese, and Arabic, the volume will serve a broad audience. This practical handbook will help seasoned instructors improve outcomes, while it can also be used for training new instructors in methods courses.
This volume comprises of chapters that deal with language proficiency relating to a wide range of language program issues including curriculum, assessment, learners and instructors, and skill development. The chapters cover various aspects of a broad-based proficiency initiative, focusing on numerous aspects of foreign language learning, including how skills develop, how assessments can inform curriculum, how learners and instructors view proficiency and proficiency assessment, and how individual use of technology furthers language learning. The concluding chapter points the way forward for issues and questions that need to be addressed.
Second Language Acquisition in a Study Abroad Context brings together for the first time a series of studies which explore the relationship between language learning and the study abroad experience. Utilizing different research methodologies (quantitative, qualitative, descriptive), the focus in this collection is on various aspects of second language learning, including the acquisition of sociolinguistic competence, the acquisition of fluency, the use of communicative strategies and the development of oral and written skills. The studies are cross-linguistic and deal with student populations at the secondary and college levels who spent between three months and one year in study abroad or exchange programs in Japan, Russia, Spain, Mexico, France or Canada.