Methods for Teaching Foreign Languages Creating a Community of Learners in the Classroom

9780130879103

013087910X

Methods for Teaching Foreign Languages: Creating a Community of Learners in the Classroomprovides a comprehensive approach to designing curriculum, instruction, and assessment for foreign language programs in middle schools and high schools. Based on a sociocultural understanding of language and development, the book attempts to bridge pedagogical theory and practice, and thus provides a principled basis for making curricular, instructional, and assessment decisions about classroom foreign language learning. The text first presents a conceptual framework built on theoretical insights and recent empirical findings from a wide range of studies on communication and communicative development in both first and second languages. It then uses this framework to lay out an approach to designing foreign language pedagogy organized around the newNational Foreign Language Standards. The text is intended for preservice and in-service teachers of modern foreign languages who aspire to teach or already teach in middle and high school language programs, and who are unfamiliar with a sociocultural approach to teaching and learning. Its purpose is to help these teachers develop the knowledge and skills needed to create and sustain classroom communities of successful foreign language learners. Readers will be guided through discussions on such essential concepts as communication, communicative development, communicative competence, and multicompetence. They will also be guided through the processes of designing curriculum based on the national foreign language standards, creating instructional activities that are linked to their curricular goals, and devising effective tools for assessing student learning. Finally, throughout most of the text, they will be guided in the design of projects for researching issues that are of particular concern to them in their teaching contexts. TEXT ORGANIZATION AND COVERAGE The book consists of nine chapters. Chapter 1 presents an overview of a sociocultural perspective on communication and language. Chapter 2 discusses current understandings of communicative development and the implications for the middle and high school foreign language classroom. Chapter 3 reviews research on practices that have been shown to lead to the establishment of effectual communities of learners. It also includes a discussion on the importance of teacher research. Chapter 4 addresses the role of classroom discourse in learning in general, and, more specifically, in foreign language learning. Chapter 5 presents guidelines for planning instruction and designing effective assessment tools. Discussions in Chapters 6, 7, and 8 draw together the diverse concepts and ideas presented in Chapters 1 through 5 and apply them to the design of effective instruction and assessment around the three modes of the Communication Standards: Interpersonal, Interpretive, and Presentational. Each chapter reviews the relevant research on one of the three modes and presents a framework for crafting effective pedagogy. Finally, Chapter 9 discusses the nature of professional development and provides ideas for becoming an active member of the foreign language education profession and for sustaining lifelong learning. FEATURES Each chapter begins with a set of Preview Questions intended to get the reader thinking about the topical content. The questions are followed by a list of Key Words and Concepts that are presented in the chapter. Key words and concepts appear in boldface type when first mentioned. The body of each chapter opens with an Overview of the chapter's content and organization. Each chapter concludes with a Summary of the ideas and concepts presented in the chapter, and a list of Discussion Questions and Activities that can be used for in-class discussions or assigned as project work to be completed outside of the regular class. In addition, beginning with Chapter 3, guides