Curriculum reforms in Hong Kong have put more emphasis on play pedagogy juxtaposed with teacher-directed academic learning. Against this background, this study investigated the nature of the play-based learning approach by reviewing Fröbel's play pedagogy ("Spielpädagogik") and comparing it with the policies and practices of the…

Classroom research into mathematics and language has studied issues of context specificity such as cultures of explanation or the impact of language policies on practice. More recently, researchers in the domain have started to study issues of content specificity aimed at performing language-responsive mathematics teaching for the learning of…

The aim of this personal reflection is to revisit the major concepts that have informed my academic research in the area of applied linguistics and second language development, and show how my overall pedagogical approach has evolved, thanks to the contribution of Vygotsky's sociocultural theory (SCT). The main focus of this paper is on the…

The Russian developmental psychologist Lev Vygotsky provides important theoretical underpinnings for an alternative to business ethics pedagogy. Although Vygotsky's constructivist approach has been applied to other disciplines, such as cognitive development, moral development, and network analysis and learning, its application to business ethics…

James P. Lantolf is George and Jane Greer Professor Emeritus of Language Acquisition and Applied Linguistics and former director of the Center for Advanced Language Proficiency Education and Research at the Pennsylvania State University, USA. He is currently Adjunct Professor of Applied Linguistics in the same academic unit at Xi'an Jiaotong…

This is a qualitative case study that explores conversational interactions during book-reading practices in a Mandarin-speaking Chinese American family between the mother and her two young children. The study employs a sociocultural lens and the concept of translanguaging to describe the characteristics of interactional practices during book…

To write a linguistic autobiography is to explore and reflect on our lived experiences with language. The purpose of this research was to gain insight into students' language experiences through their linguistic autobiographies and to gain a greater understanding of their relationship with and thoughts on language within their social contexts. In…

This book examines the role of interlocutors and their individual differences (IDs) in second language (L2) development from four theoretical lenses: the cognitive-interactionist approach, sociocultural theory, the variationist approach, and complex dynamic systems theory. A theoretical overview to each approach is written by a preeminent scholar…

The social and cultural "turn" in language education of recent years has helped move language teaching and curriculum design away from many of the more rigid dogmas of earlier generations, but the issue of the roles of the learners' first language (L1) in language pedagogy and classroom interaction is far from settled. Some follow a…

The role of world languages in the internationalization of college campuses in the United States (U.S.) has become a recurring theme of discussions in academic, government, and private sectors. Topics have ranged from the lack of a common definition of internationalization to a review of college curricula. Klee (2009) and Bettencourt (2011) have…

Until recently, the assumption of the language-teaching literature has been that new languages are best taught and learned monolingually, without the use of the students' own language(s). In recent years, however, this monolingual assumption has been increasingly questioned, and a re-evaluation of teaching that relates the language being taught to…

Code Choice in the Language Classroom argues that the foreign language classroom is and should be regarded as a multilingual community of practice rather than as a perpetually deficient imitator of an exclusive second-language environment. From a sociocultural and ecological perspective, Levine guides the reader through a theoretical, empirical,…

Presents evidence in support of Klaus Bayer's claim that present-day German has two systems of pronominal address: "Sie" and "du." The study analyzes the two systems, investigates the conflict situations between them, projects future trends, and looks at how the two are taught in the classroom. (SED)

Improvement of communication skills for junior college students is a valid goal, but traditional methods defeat it. A sociolinguistic approach maintains the goal but alters the methods, choosing to teach the skills in the context of relevant material: language against the backdrop of society, Teaching language sociolinguistically means including…

Twenty chapters of commentary on the filmed poetry recitation of Pierre Viala concentrate on developing insight into the cultural and social background of French language and literature. Suggestions for teaching the poems are followed by discussion of possible elements of a plan for teaching a poem and remarks about a "backward build-up" technique…