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Most people live with the asumption that man is the high point of life on Earth. Our technologies and ingenious inventions give further credability to what seems so self evident. Yet there is a dark side to our progress. We are exploiting the planet and it is inevitable that many resources will run out. Could man evolve differently? Is there a higher being in each of us that needs to be honored? Can we only do this by cultivating a different part of our mind? Journey along with Professor Eric Parker as he encounters a revolutionary discovery, the missing link, and weaves a new meaning to the age old question of what it means to be fully human. Will Parker be able to escape the death threats of fundamentalist zealots? Will he be able to save this recently discovered species from extinction fabricated by those who reject the idea of evolution in favor of special creation ? Will Parker find a way to make his life a more sacred experience? See how one person's search for meaning can survive in a world of conventional answers.
This collection offers a distinctly Asian voice for English language education and addresses some of the unique needs of Asian learners in EFL contexts. Teachers and researchers from nine Asian countries present some of the most current and innovative research in five distinct and fascinating areas of EFL teaching and learning.
The use of English as a global lingua franca has given rise to new challenges and approaches in our understanding of language and communication. One area where ELF (English as a lingua franca) studies, both from an empirical and theoretical orientation, have the potential for significant developments is in our understanding of the relationships between language, culture and identity. ELF challenges traditional assumptions concerning the purposed 'inexorable' link between a language and a culture. Due to the multitude of users and contexts of ELF communication the supposed language, culture and identity correlation, often conceived at the national level, appears simplistic and naïve. However, it is equally naïve to assume that ELF is a culturally and identity neutral form of communication. All communication involves participants, purposes, contexts and histories, none of which are 'neutral'. Thus, we need new approaches to understanding the relationship between language, culture and identity which are able to account for the multifarious and dynamic nature of ELF communication.
Realizing Autonomy: Practice and Reflection in Language Education Contexts presents critical practitioner research into innovative approaches to language learner autonomy. Writing about experiences in a range of widely differing contexts, the authors offer fresh insights and perspectives on the challenges and contradictions of learner autonomy.
This volume illustrates the high potential of learner corpus investigations for research into the CAF triad by presenting eleven original learner corpus-based studies which are set within solid theoretical frameworks, examine learner corpora with state-of-the-art analytical techniques and yield highly interesting findings. The volume’s major strength lies in the range of issues it undertakes and in its interdisciplinary thematic novelty. The chapters collectively address all three dimensions of L2 performance related to different linguistic subsystems (i.e. lexical, phraseological and grammatical complexity and accuracy, along with fluency) as well as the interactions among these constructs. The studies are based on data drawn from carefully compiled learner corpora which are analysed with the help of diverse corpus-based methods. The theoretical discussions and the empirical results shall contribute to the advancement of the fields of SLA and writing and speech research and shall inspire further investigations in the area of the CAF triad.
Academic Discourse Socialization: Case Study on Multilingual Learners examines academic literacy development. Yutaka Fujieda draws on literacy autobiographies, reflective journals, final narratives, blog posts on Moodle, and individual and focus group interviews with multilingual students in a mandatory research seminar course to unpack their processes, experiences, and practices of academic literacy and academic identity construction. Fujieda argues that multilingual students’ academic identities are co-constructed via various roles and a sense of belonging to the discourse community.
In EFL contexts, an absence of chances to develop fluency in the language classroom can lead to marked limitations in English proficiency. This volume explores fluency development from a number of different perspectives, investigating measurements and classroom strategies for promoting its development.
This work presents the first English-language account of the role of the important thinker, writer and politician, Luang Wichit Wathakan, in the development of state nationalism during the period of political upheaval and conflict immediately following the overthrow of the absolute monarchy in 1932.
Johann Gottfried Herder was a philosopher and important intellectual presence in eighteenth-century Germany. Herder's Political Thought examines the work of this significant figure in the context of both historical and contemporary developments in political philosophy. Vicki A. Spencer reveals Herder as one of the first Western philosophers to grapple seriously with cultural diversity without abandoning a commitment to universal values and the first to make language and culture an issue of justice. As Spencer argues, both have made Herder a source of inspiration for the pluralist turn of contemporary political philosophy. Contending that in an era of globalization, it is no longer possible to ignore Herder's crucial insights on the relationship between cultural membership and individual identity, Spencer demonstrates how these ideas can help us understand, and perhaps resolve, the linguistic and cultural-political struggles of our times.