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Offering a timely snapshot of current theory and research in the field of psychology in foreign language learning, this book is accessible to both specialists and non-specialists. Each chapter focuses on a different psychological construct and provides an overview of current thinking in the area drawing on insights from educational psychology.
This book explores key areas of educational and social psychology and considers their relevance to language learning and teaching, using activities and questions for reflection. The topics discussed in the book include: • learners’ and teachers’ beliefs about how a language should be learned and taught • learning and working in groups • relationships with others • the role of the self in teaching and learning • motivation to start and persist with tasks • the role of emotions in learning. The authors provide useful insights for the understanding of language learning and discuss the important implications for language teaching pedagogy. Extra resources are available on the website: www.oup.com/elt/teacher/exploringpsychology Marion Williams was formerly Reader in Applied Linguistics at the University of Exeter and is a past president of IATEFL. Sarah Mercer is Professor of Foreign Language Teaching at the University of Graz, Austria. Stephen Ryan is Professor in the School of Economics at Senshu University, Tokyo.
Offering a timely snapshot of current theory and research in the field of psychology in foreign language learning, this book is accessible to both specialists and non-specialists. Each chapter focuses on a different psychological construct and provides an overview of current thinking in the area drawing on insights from educational psychology.
Contents: Psycholinguistic Approaches to Language, Acquisition of the First Language, Language and Communication, Linguistic Competence and Performance, Psychological Factors in Language Learning, Sociological Implications of Language Acquisition, Bilingualism and Its Implications, Language and the Brain, Language and the Mind, Deviant Language Behaviour, The Teacher and Usage, The Phenomenon of Errors in Language, Creative Aspects of Language Learning.
To date, the majority of work in language learning psychology has focused on the learner. In contrast, relatively little attention has been paid to teacher psychology. This volume seeks to redress the imbalance by bringing together various strands of research into the psychology of language teachers. It consists of 19 contributions on well-established areas of teacher psychology, as well as areas that have only recently begun to be explored. This original collection, which covers a multitude of theoretical and methodological perspectives, makes a significant contribution to the emerging field of language teacher psychology as a domain of inquiry within language education.
Research results over the past decades have consistently demonstrated that a key reason why many second language learners fail--while some learners do better with less effort--lies in various learner attributes such as personality traits, motivation, or language aptitude. In psychology, these attributes have traditionally been called "individual differences." The scope of individual learner differences is broad--ranging from creativity to learner styles and anxiety--yet there is no current, comprehensive, and unified volume that provides an overview of the considerable amount of research conducted on various language learner differences, until now. Each chapter in this new volume focuses on a different individual difference variable. Besides a review of the relevant second language literature, Zoltán Dörnyei presents a concise overview of the psychological research involving each topic. A key concern for the author has been to define the various learner factors as measurable constructs and therefore the discussion includes a summary of the most famous tests and questionnaires in each domain. A wide range of readers will benefit from this book--students in linguistics, applied linguistics, modern languages, and psychology programs; second language teachers participating in in-service training courses; and researchers in second language acquisition and psychology.
There are very few psychologists living today who have contributed more to the advancement of psychology, in general, and to the psychology of language and thought, in particular, than O. Hobart Mowrer. It would indeed be ludicrous to attempt to list the many and varied accomplishments and contributions that Dr. Mowrer has made to his profession over the years. Even the selected essays that are in this volume can only suggest a modicum of his remarkable, vital, and ongo ing contribution to the psychology of language and thought. Further more, the chapters in this book, which were published over a period of some twenty-five years, clearly illustrate that Dr. Mowrer was concerned not only with basic research, but that he also had an interest in its application. These chapters also point to the fact that although Dr. Mowrer's orientation was primarily that of a "behaviorist" at the onset, his constant attempts to revise knowledge in this field and broaden its scope make it virtually impossible for us to classify him as a behaviorist in the narrow meaning of that term. The chapter on mental imagery, for example, written only a few years ago, serves to illustrate this point. In addition, the Autism Theory of Speech Development (see Chapter 4), one of Dr.
This handbook offers an authoritative, one-stop reference work for the dynamic and expanding field of language learning motivation. The 32 chapters have been specially commissioned from the field’s most influential researchers and writers. Together they present a compelling picture of the motivations people have for learning languages, the diverse ways we can research motivation, and the implications for promoting and sustaining learners’ motivation. The first section outlines the main theoretical approaches to language learning motivation; the next section presents ways in which motivation theory has been applied in practice; the third section showcases examples of motivation research in particular contexts and with particular types of language learners; and the final section describes the exciting directions that contemporary research is taking, promising important new insights for academics and practitioners alike.
