In this volume, language learning and professionalization are explored by addressing the existing gap between pressing needs for enhanced soft skills in work environments wherein technology-mediated, multilingual communication is increasingly the norm, and current foreign language teaching and learning offerings in higher education. Considering theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical perspectives for preparing language learners and teachers in/for the 21st century, this volume’s eight chapters underscore that research findings should inform the design of learning experiences so that people’s communication needs in fast-changing work environments are met and the link between language education and professionalization, within a lifelong learning perspective, is sustained.

An essential collection of empirical studies on the TAFL (teaching Arabic as a foreign language) classroom experience, by leading professionals in the field Although teaching Arabic as a foreign language (TAFL) has grown inexorably in recent decades, there is a dearth of empirical research on the TAFL classroom experience. In this insightful volume, Dalal Abo El Seoud brings together up-to-date practice-based research and conceptual contributions by eighteen professionals in the field. These address a wide range of challenges in teaching Arabic as a foreign language and ways of overcoming them with a clear eye to twenty-first-century language-learning skills, which advocate communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. The chapters address curriculum design, teaching Arabic to non-English speakers, trends in the use of technology, motivating students, teaching Arabic language varieties, and teaching language skills. This volume will be an invaluable resource for teachers and teachers in training of TAFL and for scholars and researchers in the field. Contributors: Dalal Abo El Seoud, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt Hagar Lotfy Amer, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt Wael M. Asfour, independent scholar, Cairo, Egypt Mona Azzam, State University of New York at Binghamton, New York, USA Mahmoud Al-Batal, The American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon Nino Ejibadze, Tbilisi State University, Tbilisi, Georgia Shereen Y. El Ezabi, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt Mohamed Ibrahim, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafr al-Sheikh, Egypt Mimi Melkonian, Brunswick School, Greenwich, Connecticut, USA Haitham S. Mohamed, University of California, Berkeley, Berkely, California, USA Joanna Natalia Murkocinska, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland. Heba Salem, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt Mohamed Sawaie, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA Laila Al-Sawi, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt Paweł Siwiec, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland Iman Aziz Soliman, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt Przemysław Turek, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland Shahira Yacout, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt

Multiliteracies in International Educational Contexts: Towards Education Justice examines how multiliteracies and Learning by Design have been taken up across international second-language instructional contexts, with a focus on inclusive practices and social justice. This edited collection brings together a team of international contributors to offer a global perspective on the application of multiliteracies in L2 education. Through the analysis of classroom-based qualitative and quantitative data on different aspects of the multiliteracies pedagogy, the book shows how the multiliteracies pedagogy can facilitate more inclusive practices while providing suggestions for pedagogical interventions and future research. This book will be a key resource for language educators, researchers, and practitioners interested in the multiliteracies pedagogy, as well as those interested in critical and social justice approaches to language teaching.

This volume in the pointunterpoint Debating Issues in American Education reference series tackles the topic of standards and accountability in schools, providing readers with views on multiple sides of standards and accountability issues and pointing them toward more in-depth resources for further exploration.

Abstracts of dissertations available on microfilm or as xerographic reproductions.

Many research studies show that the use of technology inside and outside classrooms makes teaching and learning more engaging and motivating. Technology can provide learners with endless opportunities and can improve the learning experience, simplify access to educational resources, enhance autonomous learning, meet individual learning needs, and prepare the learners for future career success when using it to foster 21st-century skills. However, the range and number of technologies currently available can yield challenges for educators if they do not know how to effectively integrate them into their teaching pedagogy. Policies, Practices, and Protocols for the Implementation of Technology Into Language Learning discusses the skills necessary for successful technology use in education and examines technology tools that assist in teaching different languages with a focus on English as a Foreign Language (EFL). Covering a range of topics such as reading, writing, and integrated language skills, this book is ideal for instructors, policymakers, administrators, researchers, practitioners, academicians, and students.

“Theoretically wise and practically powerful, this book is about how to take full advantage of advances in technology and the learner autonomy they afford, rather than simply adapt to or deny them. It issues a clarion call to language educators and administrators interested in building on recent advances in language learning via the informal avenues of digital communications.” --Mark Dressman, Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, US, Professor and Chair of English at Khalifa University, UAE “This important and original book challenges us to rethink the design and delivery of the language learning opportunities universities provide for their students. Drawing on Complex Dynamic Systems Theory, Self-Determination Theory and her own empirical explorations of informal online language learning, Denyze Toffoli paints a portrait of today’s university language learner that is novel, unexpected and urgent.” --David Little, Fellow and Associate Professor Emeritus at Trinity College, Ireland This book takes a fresh look at both context and the language learner in an attempt to shed light on the holistic and ever-changing system of the contemporary L2 speaker’s language development. Drawing on complex dynamic systems theory as a means to more fully understand the holistic nature of contemporary language learning, the author attempts to bridge the longstanding gap between formal language provision in Higher Education institutions, and more informal language acquisition achieved through activities such as listening to music, watching films and television, and playing games. Based on a theoretical understanding of the interplay between these contexts, contents and practices, the author offers suggestions concerning the shape of language centres in higher education and the role of teachers in readying the contemporary language learner for autonomous lifelong and lifewide language development. This book will be of particular interest to language teachers, teacher trainers, and higher education administrators.