Educating for Advanced Foreign Language Capacities

Weger-Guntharp, Heather

ISBN 10: 158901118X / ISBN 13: 9781589011182

Published by Georgetown University Press, 2006

About this Item

Presents both general and theoretical insights and language-specific considerations in college classrooms spanning a range of languages, from the commonly taught languages of English, French, and German to the less commonly taught Farsi, Korean, Norwegian, .

Seller Inventory # 825422893

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Educating for Advanced Foreign Language Capacities
• Publisher: Georgetown University Press
• Publication Date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 158901118X
• ISBN 13: 9781589011182
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Advanced language learning has only recently begun to capture the interest and attention of applied linguists and professionals in language education in the United States. In this breakthrough volume, experts in the field lay the groundwork for approaching the increasingly important role of advanced language learning in the larger context of multilingual societies, globalization, and security.

This volume presents both general and theoretical insights and language-specific considerations in college classrooms spanning a range of languages, from the commonly taught languages of English, French, and German to the less commonly taught Farsi, Korean, Norwegian, and Russian.

Among theoretical frameworks likely to be conducive to imagining and fostering instructed "advancedness" in a second language, this volume highlights a cognitive-semantic approach. The theoretical and data-based findings make clear that advanced learners in particular are characterized by the capacity to make situated choices from across the entire language system, from vocabulary and grammar to discourse features, which suggests the need for a text-oriented, meaning-driven approach to language teaching, learning, and research.

This volume also considers whether and how information structuring in second-language composition reveals first-language preferences of grammaticized concepts. Other topics include curricular and instructional approaches to narrativity, vocabulary expansion, the demands on instructed programs for efficiency and effectiveness in order to assure advanced levels, and learners' ability to function in professional contexts with their diverse oral and written genre requirements. Finally, the volume probes the role and nature of assessment as a measurement tool for both researching and assessing advanced language learning and as an essential component of improving programs.

About the Author

Heidi Byrnes is the George M. Roth Distinguished Professor of German at Georgetown University. In 2004 she was awarded the Nelson Brooks Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Culture by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.

Heather D. Weger-Guntharp is currently working on her PhD in applied linguistics at Georgetown University, with primary specialization in individual differences and SLA.

Katherine A. Sprang holds a PhD from the German Department at Georgetown University, with primary specialization in second language acquisition.