scholarly journals Nicoletta Marini-Maio and Colleen Ryan-Scheutz (eds) (2008). Set the Stage! Teaching Italian through Theater.

2009 ◽  
Vol III (2) ◽  
pp. 74-76
Author(s):  
Kelly C. Kingsbury
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Italian Literature ◽  
Theatre History ◽  
Valuable Contribution ◽  
Teachable Moments ◽  
History Curriculum ◽  
Dario Fo ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Dacia Maraini

Set the Stage! Teaching Italian through Theater: Theories, Methods, and Practices (Yale, 2008), edited by Nicoletta Marini-Maio and Colleen Ryan-Scheutz, is a tremendously valuable contribution to the growing body of literature on drama and theatre in foreign/second language (L2) education. This volume contains eleven chapters addressing a diverse array of topics, a comprehensive director’s handbook, and reflective contributions by Dario Fo, Franca Rame and Dacia Maraini, three of Italy’s most prominent theatre practitioners engaged with pedagogical questions related to the learning of L2 Italian through theatre. The chapters of Set the Stage! encompass both theoretical and practical orientations toward questions of culture, theatre history, curriculum, and assessment in language learning, and they offer an array of perspectives that illuminate a variety of possible models for incorporating diverse forms of theatre within the L2 curriculum. The first section of Set the Stage! includes an overview of theatre’s place within Italian literature and culture. Following Pietro Frassica’s overview of the Italian theatrical canon, William Van Watson offers an insightful commentary on the inherent theatricality of Italian cultural interactions, the possibilities this raises for cultural misunderstandings, and the concomitant potential it holds for theatrically teachable moments. Section II focuses on the place of ...

(In)Commensurable Discourse: Researchers and Practitioners Bring Pragmatics to Language Learning

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie M. Sykes
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Primary Component ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Language Classroom ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Valuable Role

AbstractThe recent surge in a growing body of empirical research is evidence of a strong theoretical push towards L2 pragmatic acquisition in the field of second language acquisition; yet, the reality is that we see very little evidence of pragmatics instruction in L2 contexts, suggesting a notable disconnect between theory and practice. This viewpoints article explores the valuable role both researchers and practitioners play in bridging the gap between theory and practice with the intention of bringing pragmatics to the forefront of the language classroom. It briefly discusses the importance of including pragmatics as a primary component of second language (L2) learning and then explores various obstacles to pragmatics instruction, paying special attention to the role both researchers and practitioners can play in overcoming them. Examples from current projects related to L2 Spanish pragmatics are presented where relevant.

A Review of Studies on Languaging and Second Language Learning (2006-2017)

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (12) ◽  
pp. 1222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruiying Niu ◽  
Lijia Li
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Second Language Learning ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Future Research ◽  
The Past ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
L2 Learning

Since Swain postulated the concept “languaging” in 2006 to capture the role of language production in second language (L2) learning, a growing body of empirical studies has been conducted on languaging. However, little research has reviewed these studies. The present paper reviews 15 empirical studies that were conducted over the past decade on languaging in L2 learning, followed Vygotsky’s socioculutral theory of mind, and directly took languaging as the treatment or part of the treatment. We distinguished task-prompted and teacher-imposed languaging in the paper. All studies reviewed focused on teacher-imposed languaging. On the basis of reviewing the foci and findings of the studies, we offer our critical comments and recommendations for future research.

scholarly journals Review of Engaging language learners in contemporary classrooms; Authors: Sarah Mercer, Zoltán Dörnyei; Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2020; ISBN: 9781108445924; Pages: 208

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 813-818
Author(s):  
Haydab Almukhaild
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
General Education ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learning ◽  
Great Depth ◽  
Learner Engagement ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Growing Body

Learner engagement is key to successful learning experiences in general education and language learning is no exception. When students are engaged, they are focusing on the task at hand, paying attention and enjoying their language learning (Aubrey et al., 2020; Ellis, 2018; Mercer, 2019; Oga-Baldwin, 2019). Yet, as Mercer and Dörnyei affirm in their introduction to the book, “discussions of engagement . . . have been largely absent from the literature of L2 [second language] learning and teaching” (p. 4). Engaging Language Learners in Contemporary Classrooms addresses this gap directly and in great depth, thus making it a ground-breaking contribution to the growing body of second language (L2) literature on learner engagement.

Corpus Research Applications in Second Language Teaching: A Look into Corpus-informed Materials Development

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Norwati Roslim ◽  
Muhammad Hakimi Tew Abdullah ◽  
Anealka Aziz ◽  
Vahid Nimehchisalem ◽  
Azhani Almuddin
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Teaching Materials ◽  
Materials Development ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Reference Grammar ◽  
Corpus Studies ◽  
Reference Corpus ◽  
Clear Guideline

Numerous corpus studies have suggested that teaching materials design could greatly benefit from the empirical information about language use provided by corpus linguistics. In spite of the awareness that corpus-based research can offer valuable insights for materials development, still relatively small number of studies report on the practical applications of corpus data for teaching materials development. There is no clear guideline or framework on how corpora and corpus studies could assist in developing teaching materials. Hence, this study focusses on one grammatical item which poses problems to Malaysian learners, that is, prepositions. The objectives are (i) to identify prepositions in the British National Corpus as a reference corpus and the descriptions offered by linguists and grammarians as a reference grammar, and (ii) to provide a framework to use reference corpus, reference grammar and corpus-based research, as a resource for developing materials in the teaching of prepositions. In order to meet the objectives, content analysis was used as the methodology throughout this study. The findings showed that reference corpus, reference grammar and corpus-based research could be used systematically as guidance to develop corpus-informed materials. It is hoped that this contribution of knowledge could have an impact on second language learning-teaching.

Individual differences predict ERP signatures of second language learning of novel grammatical rules

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily S Nichols ◽  
Marc F Joanisse
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
First Language ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Grammatical Rule ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Anterior Negativity

We investigated the extent to which second-language (L2) learning is influenced by the similarity of grammatical features in one’s first language (L1). We used event-related potentials to identify neural signatures of a novel grammatical rule - grammatical gender - in L1 English speakers. Of interest was whether individual differences in L2 proficiency and age of acquisition (AoA) influenced these effects. L2 and native speakers of French read French sentences that were grammatically correct, or contained either a grammatical gender or word order violation. Proficiency and AoA predicted Left Anterior Negativity amplitude, with structure violations driving the proficiency effect and gender violations driving the AoA effect. Proficiency, group, and AoA predicted P600 amplitude for gender violations but not structure violations. Different effects of grammatical gender and structure violations indicate that L2 speakers engage novel grammatical processes differently from L1 speakers and that this varies appreciably based on both AoA and proficiency.

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