Listen to audio lessons, while you read along! Buy or sample now! Interactive. Effective. And FUN! Start speaking English in minutes, and learn key vocabulary, phrases, and grammar in just minutes more with Absolute Beginner English - a completely new way to learn English with ease! Absolute Beginner English will arm you with English and cultural insight to utterly shock and amaze your English friends and family, teachers, and colleagues. What you get in Absolute Beginner English: - 200+ pages of English learning material - 25 English lessons: dialog transcripts with translation, vocabulary, sample sentences and a grammar section - 25 Audio Lesson Tracks (over 5 hours of English lessons) - 5 Audio Review Tracks (practice new words and phrases) - 5 Audio Dialog Tracks (read along while you listen) This book is the most powerful way to learn English. Guaranteed. You get the two most powerful components of our language learning system: the audio lessons and lesson notes. Why are the audio lessons so effective? - 25 powerful and to the point lessons - syllable-by-syllable breakdown of each word and phrase so that you can say every word and phrase instantly - repeat after the professional teacher to practice proper pronunciation - cultural insight and insider-only tips from our teachers in each lesson - fun and relaxed approach to learning - effortlessly learn from native hosts as they guide you through the pitfalls and pleasures of USA and English. Why are the lesson notes so effective? - improve listening comprehension and reading comprehension by reading the dialog transcript while listening to the conversation - grasp the exact meaning of phrases and expressions with natural translations - expand your word and phrase usage with the expansion section - master and learn to use English grammar with the grammar section Interactive. Effective. And FUN! Discover or rediscover how fun learning a language can be with the future of language learning.

Millions of adults in the U.S. report that they speak limited English, and English language ability appears linked to multiple dimensions of adult life, such as civic participation and workforce participation and mobility. This report examined: (1) the trends in the need for and enrollment in federally funded adult English language programs; (2) the nature of federal support for adult English language learning, (3) ways in which states and local public providers have supported English language programs for adults; and (4) federal agencies' plans for research to identify effective approaches to adult English language learning. Illustrations.

By exploring the ways that teachers and pupils can help to improve classroom practices, this book shows how education planners and practitioners can effect improvements in schools even in situations of very scarce resources. It is suitable for those who are working to improve English language teaching and learning.

This edited volume brings together 10 cutting-edge empirical studies on the realities of English language learning, teaching and testing in a wide range of global contexts where English is an additional language. It covers three themes: learners’ development of interactional competence, the organization of teaching and testing practices, and sociocultural and ideological forces that may impact classroom interaction. With a decided focus on English-as-a-Foreign-Language contexts, the studies involve varied learner populations, from children to young adults to adults, in different learning environments around the world. The insights gained will be of interest to EFL professionals, as well as teacher trainers, policymakers and researchers.

Providing a series of chapters, written by teacher educators in three continents, this edited volume explores the concepts, challenges, possibilities, and implementations of competency-based instruction for developing English competencies in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts. Recent trends in education have emphasized the need to develop competencies that connect learning with real-life performances. This need has brought about a massive increase in the number of studies and scholarly works devoted to research into competency-based education. However, for teachers and learners of EFL, it is challenging to develop competencies for using a language that does not seem to connect with their real-life scenarios. The chapters apply the concept of competency-based instruction in different EFL contexts and are structured around three themes: Theory: current thoughts on theories of competency-based education Research: empirical research on competency-based teacher education Practice: integrating competency-based instruction into teacher education This book offers examples of competency-based EFL teacher education through both research and practical applications. In addition to the innovation in competency approaches, the inclusion of language learning in virtual environments offers a valuable resource for scholars, educators, researchers, and all those concerned with current and future education.

Mental health has become a growing concern in today's society, with schools emerging as focal points for addressing this topic. The present volume takes this as a starting point to explore the relevance of curricula and competencies, texts and materials, (digital) culture and communication, and teacher education in the context of mental health and English language education. This, for instance, includes insights into interrelated topics such as gender, climate change, stress, and conspiracy theories. A variety of texts including multimodal novels, video games, and songs provides practical impulses for integrating mental health related topics into English lessons. As such, this volume brings together scholars from various fields who discuss the relationship between mental health issues and English as a foreign language learning from a variety of theoretical, empirical, and practice-oriented perspectives.

First published in 1991. Debates about the state and status of the English language are rarely debates about language alone. Closely linked to the question, what is proper English? is another, more significant social question: who are the proper English? The texts in this book have been selected to illustrate the process by which particular forms of English usage are erected and validated as correct and standard. At the same time, the texts demonstrate how a certain group of people, and certain sets of cultural practices are privileged as correct, standard and central. Covering a period of three hundred years, these writers, who include Locke, Swift, Webster, James, Newbolt and Marenbon, wrestle with questions of language change and decay, correct and incorrect usage, what to prescribe and proscribe. Reread in the light of recent debates about cultural identity - how is it constructed and maintained? what are its effects? - these texts clearly demonstrate the formative roles of race, class and gender in the construction of proper ‘Englishness' . Tony Crowley's introductory material breaks new ground in rescuing these texts from the academic backwater of the 'history of the language' and in reasserting the central role of language in history.

Listening Skills for the 21st Century is a textbook intended to help Japanese students master basic listening skills in English. Based on the principles of phonics, the text introduces long and short vowel sounds, using the technique of 'minimal pairs.' In addition, consonant sounds the persistently bother Japanese students are presented. Exercises for both vowels and consonants include choosing which sound is heard, choosing between pairs of words heard in a sentence, writing the word that is heard in a sentence, and choosing between four possible words in a sentence. The text introduces short conversations and short passages for global listening comprehension. Beyond basic listening exercises, Listening Skills for the 21st Century includes all the basics of media listening.

Benjamin dismantles Americans' preconceived notions of the Japanese education system "Gail R. Benjamin reaches beyond predictable images of authoritarian Japanese educators and automaton schoolchildren to show the advantages and disadvantages of a system remarkably different from the American one..."—The New York Times Book Review Americans regard the Japanese educational system and the lives of Japanese children with a mixture of awe and indignance. We respect a system that produces higher literacy rates and superior math skills, but we reject the excesses of a system that leaves children with little free time and few outlets for creativity and self-expression. In Japanese Lessons, Gail R. Benjamin recounts her experiences as a American parent with two children in a Japanese elementary school. An anthropologist, Benjamin successfully weds the roles of observer and parent, illuminating the strengths of the Japanese system and suggesting ways in which Americans might learn from it. With an anthropologist's keen eye, Benjamin takes us through a full year in a Japanese public elementary school, bringing us into the classroom with its comforting structure, lively participation, varied teaching styles, and non-authoritarian teachers. We follow the children on class trips and Sports Days and through the rigors of summer vacation homework. We share the experiences of her young son and daughter as they react to Japanese schools, friends, and teachers. Through Benjamin we learn what it means to be a mother in Japan--how minute details, such as the way mothers prepare lunches for children, reflect cultural understandings of family and education.