This book offers an insight into the 21st century teaching and learning of English in Asia. Despite English being widely recognized as a lingua franca in this era of globalization, the general EFL proficiency of graduates from high schools and even universities in most Asian countries are still below the expectations of policymakers. Given the critical role English will play in the globalized world, this review and examination of the current state of English education in Asia is both important and timely. This book consists of ten chapters from ten different Asian countries, including the Russian Far East. The scope of the book allows EFL students, researchers and teachers to gain perspectives on many of the significant current issues, expectations, and challenges in the teaching and learning of English faced by Asia in the 21st century.

The teaching of English in the Asian context is always challenging and dynamic because both teachers and learners have diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Equally important, where English is not widely used outside the classroom, English language classrooms are an authentic site of learner engagement. For these reasons, for all those concerned with contemporary English language teaching (ELT) in Asia, Asian English Language Classrooms: Where Theory and Practice Meet, provides an account of theoretical orientations and practices in the teaching of English to multilingual speakers whose primary language is not English. While covering the fundamental ELT areas (e.g., the teaching of language skills, educational literature, the use of technology in ELT, the role of pragmatics in ELT, social psychology of the language classroom, and language classroom management) with which every language teacher and teacher trainer must be concerned, this volume showcases how particular orientations shape ELT practices. We believe that practicing English teachers must have a heightened awareness of the theory behind their practice. At the same time, the theoretical stance must be firmly anchored in actual classrooms. Containing newly commissioned chapters written by well-regarded and emerging scholars, this book will appeal not only to beginning teachers or teachers in training but also to established teachers around Asia where English is used as a lingua franca. If you are a student teacher of English or an English teacher who would like to see what other progressive teachers like you are doing across Asia, this is the book you have been looking for.

This book presents mixed-methods research into Chinese students' willingness to communicate (WTC) in an EFL classroom context. The interrelationships between WTC and motivation, communication confidence, learner beliefs and classroom environment are examined using structural equation modelling on data collected in a large-scale survey. These results are then complemented and expanded upon in a follow-up multiple case-study that identifies six themes which account for fluctuations of WTC over time and across situations. The qualitative and quantitative data provide the grounds for the proposition of an ecological model of WTC in the Chinese EFL university classroom, which reveals that WTC is socioculturally constructed as a function of the interaction of individual and environmental factors inside and beyond the classroom walls.

Silence is a key pedagogical issue in language education. Seen by some as a space for thinking and reflection during the learning process, for others silence represents a threat, inhibiting target language interaction which is so vital during second language acquisition. This book eschews stereotypes and generalisations about why so many learners from East Asia seem either reluctant or unable to speak in English by providing a state-of-the art account of current research into the complex and ambiguous issue of silence in language education. The innovative research included in this volume focuses on silence both as a barrier to successful learning and as a resource that may in some cases facilitate language acquisition. The book offers a fresh perspective on ways to facilitate classroom interaction while also embracing silence and it touches on key pedagogical concepts such as teacher cognition, the role of task features, classroom interactional approaches, pedagogical intervention and socialisation, willingness to communicate, as well as psychological and sociocultural factors. Each of the book’s chapters include self-reflection and discussion tasks, as well as annotated bibliographies for further reading.

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.

"This important new book provides a critical overview of recent classroom-centered research and its implications for the teaching and learning of languages. Chaudron synthesizes and evaluates crucial research about the way student and teacher behaviours affect language learning and discusses research methods. Second Language Classrooms will be of vital interest to researchers, language teachers, and curriculum specialists, as well as readers with a general interest in education, linguistics, sociology, or psychology."-- Font no determinada.

Applies applied linguistic theories to the development of materials for language learning to add new depth to the field.

Educating children and leading them towards the path of bilingualism is a valuable and challenging task for any educator. Effective language teaching can contribute to young learners’ cognitive growth, develop their problem-solving skills, enhance their comprehension abilities, and provide children with the satisfaction of succeeding in the challenge of learning a foreign language. All these issues must be taken under consideration when researching children and their teachers. The current literature indicates that further material is needed to provide professionals with different classroom situations and enhance the art of teaching children. Teaching Practices and Equitable Learning in Children's Language Education focuses on various perspectives of efficient practices, approaches, and ideas for professional development in the field of young language learners. The chapters in this book link the theoretical understanding and practical experience of teaching children languages by concentrating on teaching practices, material design, classroom management, reading, speaking, writing, and more. This book is designed for inservice and preservice teachers, administrators, teacher educators, practitioners, stakeholders, researchers, academicians, and students interested in the field of early language learning and applied linguistics at large.

Although Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is a popular teaching method, research on CLIL has nearly exclusively focused on aspects of language learning. Besides that, we are still lacking any cognitively well-grounded theory about the special features of contexts in which the focus is on content learning, but in which a foreign language is used as the medium of communicating information. This book re-examines the basis for CLIL from a cognitive perspective and investigates how the use of a foreign language as a working language influences the processing of content. It summarizes findings from cognitive psychology on thinking, problem solving and conceptual processing, and integrates them with models of language-specific mental activities such as speech processing and text composition. This provides a theoretically well-grounded basis for the understanding of the special features of CLIL, and promotes a Cognitive Linguistic perspective on CLIL pedagogy. The theoretical considerations form the basis for an empirical study that offers the first insights into what CLIL learners actually do when they solve content-focused tasks while using an L2. Through spontaneous verbalization of thought, detailed verbal protocols were elicited and analysed into language and content focused cognitive processes. The analysis shows that both language and conceptual thought interact closely and that a focus on language in general has positive effects on the processing of semantic content; the use of an L2 as working language can enhance this effect. Additionally, the study offers a thorough reflection and new perspectives on verbal protocols as research tools, in particular in L2 contexts.

Winner of the 2021 PROSE Humanities Category for Language & Linguistics The first volume of its kind, focusing on the sociolinguistic and socio-political issues surrounding Asian Englishes The Handbook of Asian Englishes provides wide-ranging coverage of the historical and cultural context, contemporary dynamics, and linguistic features of English in use throughout the Asian region. This first-of-its-kind volume offers a wide-ranging exploration of the English language throughout nations in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. Contributions by a team of internationally-recognized linguists and scholars of Asian Englishes and Asian languages survey existing works and review new and emerging areas of research in the field. Edited by internationally renowned scholars in the field and structured in four parts, this Handbook explores the status and functions of English in the educational institutions, legal systems, media, popular cultures, and religions of diverse Asian societies. In addition to examining nation-specific topics, this comprehensive volume presents articles exploring pan-Asian issues such as English in Asian schools and universities, English and language policies in the Asian region, and the statistics of English across Asia. Up-to-date research addresses the impact of English as an Asian lingua franca, globalization and Asian Englishes, the dynamics of multilingualism, and more. Examines linguistic history, contemporary linguistic issues, and English in the Outer and Expanding Circles of Asia Focuses on the rapidly-growing complexities of English throughout Asia Includes reviews of the new frontiers of research in Asian Englishes, including the impact of globalization and popular culture Presents an innovative survey of Asian Englishes in one comprehensive volume Serving as an important contribution to fields such as contact linguistics, World Englishes, sociolinguistics, and Asian language studies, The Handbook of Asian Englishes is an invaluable reference resource for undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, and instructors across these areas. Winner of the 2021 PROSE Humanities Category for Language & Linguistics