Recommends that language teachers incorporate discourse and pragmatics in their teaching if they wish to implement a communicative approach in their classrooms. The authors show how a discourse perspective can enhance the teaching of traditional areas of linguistic knowledge and language skills.

This text includes a selection of commissioned and classic articles that introduce a range of theories of second language acquisition and the contested explanations of effective language learning.

In this book Michael McCarthy and Ronald Carter describe the discoursal properties of language and demonstrate what insights this approach can offer to the student and teacher of language. The authors examine the relationship between complete texts, both spoken and written, and the social and cultural contexts in which they function. They argue that the functions of language are often best understood in a discoursal environment and that exploring language in context compels us to revise commonly-held understandings about the forms and meanings of language. In so doing, the authors argue the need for language teachers, syllabus planners and curriculum organisers to give greater attention to language as discourse.

The papers in this volume represent varied views on the role of context in language learning.

"This book takes cultural knowledge in language learning not only as a necessary aspect of communicative competence, but as an educational objective in its own right. If the aim of foreign language education is to foster cross-cultural awareness and self-realization, language pedagogy needs to come to grips with a range of fundamental issues: what do we mean by cultural context? Can discourse practices be taught like rules of grammar? What role does literature play in the development of second language literacy? How can learners acquire both an insider's and an outsider's understanding of the foreign culture as expressed through its language? By exploring these and other issues, the book can help language teachers reflect on their profession and place it within its larger societal and educational context. In turn, they can help learners become not only skilful users of the language, but also active architects of a new cross-cultural world order.".

This volume presents a wide ranging overview of key theoretical and practical issues, empirical research and various analyses of pragmatic phenomena that will certainly be most useful and helpful to students and researchers in pragmatics and other linguistic disciplines and, of course, to L2 teachers. It is divided into five parts that include chapters addressing cognitive issues on L2 teaching, how and what to teach when dealing with specific speech acts, intercultural aspects of communication, the teaching of languages for academic and specific purposes and some other methodological issues on pragmatics teaching.

Introducing language use and interaction as the basis of good teaching and learning, this invaluable book equips teachers and researchers with the tools to analyze classroom discourse and move towards more effective instruction. Presenting an overview of existing approaches to describing and analyzing classroom discourse, Steve Walsh identifies the principal characteristics of classroom language in the contexts of second language classrooms, primary and secondary classrooms, and higher education settings. A distinct feature of the book are the classroom recordings and reflective feedback interviews from a sample group of teachers that Walsh uses to put forward SETT (Self Evaluation of Teacher Talk) as a framework for examining discourse within the classroom. This framework is used to identify different modes of discourse, which are employed by teachers and students, to increase awareness of the importance of interaction, and to maximize learning opportunities. This book will appeal to applied linguists, teachers and researchers of TESOL, as well as practitioners on MEd or taught doctorate programmes.

The book “A glance of fundamental issues in Language Education” will certainly give a positive contribution to the contemporary scholarship. As a professor at the Faculty of Languages and Arts, Universitas Negeri Jakarta, I am positive that the discussions in this book provide the readers with some prominent contemporary development in Language Education. The book resonates and foregrounds what happens in language classrooms in modern societies. Finally, I do believe that students of language teaching, language teachers or anyone interested in the discipline will find this book valuable.

THE POWER OF CONTEXT IN LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING provides a highly accessible, in-depth study of the relationship between discourse and the context of language teaching and learning. A tribute to Marianne Celce-Murcia's groundbreaking and distinguished work, this text contains a strong combination of theory and practice that will benefit any language teacher or student.