This volume is the result of the presentations and discussions carried out at the Conference on “Early Foreign Language Learning in Educational Contexts. Bridging Good Practices and Research” organized by the University Ramon Lull, the University of Bari and LEND (Lingua e Nuova Didattica) in March 2010. At the Conference, both teachers and researchers met to examine recent language teaching theories and practices from a transnational and intercultural perspective, on the one hand, and on the other, to fill the gap in the field of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in schools and to pave the way for a wider platform of discussion between School and University. Since these two institutions have often had little contact and, as there is excellent work carried out in both, our attempt was to build more solid bridges across their contexts, engaging school teachers in ongoing research and bringing everyday classroom practice nearer to university theoreticians in an open exchange forum so that the reflection on teaching and learning becomes relevant and rewarding for the participants involved in Early Foreign Language Learning in 21st century contexts. Drawing on the main topics presented throughout the Conference, this book has been structured around three main thematic areas: 1) the Age Factor, 2) CLIL and Content-based research and practices, and 3) developing intercultural competence: use of the L1 and translation as mediation skills. Each of these sections encompasses high quality contributions, all informed by salient and recent research, clear and justified theoretical standpoints and good practices which are appealing to an international audience and setting. The editors sincerely hope that this volume contributes to widen the field of foreign language teaching and learning to include studies on young learners’ perceptions and performance. At the same time, they would like to highlight the decisive new focus on language learning adopted in the 21st century: the inclusion of a wider vision of language acquisition, one that highlights the relevance of using languages not only to communicate but, more relevantly, to mediate between cultures, as a means to bring together the plurilingual and pluricultural citizens of our future.

Language teaching approaches, methods and procedures are constantly undergoing reassessment. New ideas keep emerging as the growing complexity of the means of communication and the opportunities created by technology put language skills to new uses. In addition, the political, social and economic impact of globalisation, the new demands of the labour market that result from it, the pursuit of competitiveness, the challenges of intercultural communication and the diversification of culture have opened new perspectives on the central role that foreign languages have come to play in the development of contemporary societies. This book provides an insight into the latest developments in the field and discusses the new trends in foreign language teaching in four major areas, namely methods and approaches, teacher training, innovation in the classroom, and evaluation and assessment.

Population diversity is becoming more prevalent globally with increasing immigration, emigration, and refugee placement. These circumstances increase the likelihood that a child will be raised speaking a different language in the home than the common language used in each country. This necessitates the development of comprehensive strategies that promote second language learning through the adoption of new technological advancements. New Technological Applications for Foreign and Second Language Learning and Teaching is a scholarly publication that explores how the latest technologies have the potential to engage foreign and second language learners both within and outside the language classroom and to facilitate language learning and teaching in the target language. Highlighting a range of topics such as learning analytics, digital games, and telecollaboration, this book is ideal for teachers, instructional designers, curriculum developers, IT consultants, educational software developers, language learning specialists, academicians, administrators, professionals, researchers, and students.

This book provides an up-to-date snapshot of recent research and developments in the use of corpora for language learning and teaching. It is divided into three parts. Part I focusses on innovative uses of corpora by language teachers and learners. These cover the world's first corpus-based TV program for the teaching of English conversation, as well as corpus-based approaches to the teaching of EAP, cultural studies and translation. Part II focuses on new corpus-based tools for LSP learning. Part III illustrates research findings from corpora consisting of language learner data and discusses their implications for language teaching and learning. It will appeal to scholars in both language teaching and learning and corpus and computational linguistics.

Provides a much-needed overview of current themes and research on child second language learning.

"The first half of this book examines the commercial, social, and political implications of American monolingualism. The second half of the book explores the techniques and tools that a working professional can use to acqure functional skills in a new language."--Back cover.

This is the first international and interdisciplinary handbook to offer a comprehensive and an in-depth overview of findings from contemporary research, theory, and practice in early childhood language education in various parts of the world and with different populations. The contributions by leading scholars and practitioners are structured to give a survey of the topic, highlight its importance, and provide a critical stance. The book covers preschool ages, and looks at children belonging to diverse ethno-linguistic groups and experiencing different histories and pathways of their socio-linguistic and socio-cultural development and early education. The languages under the scope of this handbook are identified by the contributors as immigrant languages, indigenous, endangered, heritage, regional, minority, majority, and marginalized, as well as foreign and second languages, all of which are discussed in relation to early language education as the key concept of the handbook. In this volume, “early language education” will refer to any kind of setting, both formal and informal (e.g. nursery, kindergarten, early childhood education centers, complementary early schooling etc.) in which language learning within a context of children's sociolinguistic diversity takes place before elementary school.