front cover of Pedagogical Innovations in Oral Academic Communication
Pedagogical Innovations in Oral Academic Communication
Megan M. Siczek, Editor
University of Michigan Press, 2022
Oral communication is key to students’ classroom success and a skill that is highly valued in both academic and professional contexts, yet there are few resources for developing courses on oral academic communication. This edited collection gathers TESOL scholars and practitioners in exploring the theories, principles, and pedagogical practices that shape and help innovate the teaching of oral communication in higher education.
 
Pedagogical Innovations in Oral Academic Communication is grounded in four key principles: academic discourse socialization; context-responsive instruction; instructional approaches of English for Academic Purposes and English for Specific Purposes; and asset-oriented pedagogy. In the chapters in this collection, the authors share their teaching context, the details and underlying principles of their pedagogical approach, and recommendations for practitioners. Readers will develop a deeper understanding of the communicative contexts their students inhabit, including the types of speaking situations they are likely to encounter, and understand how to innovate their approach to teaching oral communication to students from diverse cultural, linguistic, educational, and disciplinary backgrounds. Such innovations prepare students for more effective communication during their academic studies and professional career, a goal that is of central importance in our globally interconnected society.
[more]

front cover of Peer Response in Second Language Writing Classrooms
Peer Response in Second Language Writing Classrooms
Jun Liu and Jette G. Hansen
University of Michigan Press, 2002
Peer response in which students work together to provide feedback on one another's writing in both written and oral formats through active engagement with each other's progress over multiple drafts, has been discussed in L2 writing literature since the early 1980s. While peer response activities have now become a common feature of L2 writing instruction, much of the research in peer response studies presents conflicting data. There is a need for a comprehensive survey of it in an effort to help teachers sort out what may or may not be useful to them in the classroom. Peer Response in Second Language Writing Classrooms was written to fill that void.
Peer Response in Second Language Writing Classrooms will provide teachers with practical guidelines for making peer response effective in the classroom and will offer a theoretical grounding on the purposes and importance of peer review, or feedback, as it relates to current writing instruction pedagogy.
[more]

front cover of Peer Response in Second Language Writing Classrooms, Second Edition
Peer Response in Second Language Writing Classrooms, Second Edition
Jun Liu and Jette G. Hansen Edwards
University of Michigan Press, 2018
Since the publication of the first edition in 2002, there have been two major developments in L2 writing and peer response teaching and research. The first is the increased interest in CALL and computer-mediated communication (CMC) for L2 pedagogy; the second is the accessibility and viability of research on L2 peer response from all over the world. Both developments are thoroughly addressed in this new edition.
 
Now that classes are as likely to be online as held in physical classrooms and now that a new generation of digital natives can routinely read and respond to what others write via laptops, tablets, and phones, peer response as pedagogical practice is not just more easily implemented, but it is more likely to feel natural to L2 learners.
 
The Second Edition is a highly accessible guide to how the world is using peer response and serves as a motivator and facilitator for those who want to try it for the first time or want to increase the effectiveness of the activities—whether via CMC or not. The volume includes 11 forms useful in training students to provide good peer feedback, including a final checklist to ensure teachers have taken all the necessary steps to achieve a successful peer feedback activity.
 
[more]

front cover of Perspectives on Fluency
Perspectives on Fluency
Heidi Riggenbach
University of Michigan Press, 2000
Because there have been few attempts to specify precisely what fluency is, Heidi Riggenbach has culled an impressive list of linguistic scholars and researchers representing the disciplines of psycholinguistics, socio-linguistics, and speech communication, for example, to write original papers for Perspectives on Fluency. This volume offers a historical overview of fluency and, in seeking to better define the term, focuses on both native speaker and nonnative speaker fluency.
Section 1, What Is Fluency? presents papers that all describe fluency, but in different ways.
The articles in Section 2, Essential Components of Fluency, consider features or components that contribute to impressions of fluency.
Section 3, Cognitive Processes Underlying Fluency, is devoted to an exploration of the psycholinguistic factors underlying fluency.
Three studies are presented in Section 4, Empirical Studies on Nonnative Fluency, and they exemplify the range of approaches to characterizing learners as fluent or nonfluent in their target language.
One objective of Perspectives on Fluency is to provide a starting point for language researchers interested in exploring the concept of fluency, a foundation that, until the arrival of this volume, did not exist. The book can be useful to those approaching fluency from a language assessment perspective, and those interested in the relationship of fluency to oral proficiency.

[more]

front cover of Perspectives on Good Writing in Applied Linguistics and TESOL
Perspectives on Good Writing in Applied Linguistics and TESOL
Edited by Robert Kohls and Christine Pearson Casanave
University of Michigan Press, 2023
In order to teach, evaluate, and research academic writing, scholars and writing teachers need to have a clear and explicit idea of what they mean by “good” or “bad” writing rather than taking an intuitive, “I know it when I see it” approach. In Perspectives on Good Writing in Applied Linguistics and TESOL, seasoned scholars and pre-service writing teachers offer their insights into the nature and activity of effective writing in first and additional languages at the college and university level. Readers will find first-person accounts of well-established scholars learning to write and publish in English, conceptual articulations on the nature of writing and academic publishing, and how perspectives on good writing shape teacher feedback and writing curricula. In addition, this book suggests new areas of L2 writing research beyond the well-traveled practice of written corrective feedback (WCF). This book is ideal for readers curious to learn more about how established scholars developed their writing skills as well as for pre-service teachers exploring their own beliefs, values, and assumptions about what good writing means to them.

In Perspectives on Good Writing in Applied Linguistics and TESOL, readers will develop their understanding of writing practices through chapters covering the following areas: 
  1. teaching, learning, and assessing
  2. mentoring, supervising, and publishing
  3. personal perspectives
  4. readers and reading
[more]

logo for University of Michigan Press
Preparing Adult English Learners to Read for College and the Workplace
Kirsten Schaetzel, Joy Kreeft Peyton, Rebeca Fernández
University of Michigan Press, 2024
The ability to read effectively—to work with a text, understand its meaning, and talk and write about it with and for others—is a critical aspect of academic and workplace success. However, many adults who are learning English as a second or additional language do not have the skills needed to be successful and may drop out of college and university programs before they reach their goal. Bringing together a rich collection of topics and authors, this edited volume provides theory, research, and instructional approaches to help adult education ESL practitioners work effectively with adult learners and prepare them to be successful with reading in academic and workplace settings. 

After reading this book, adult ESL practitioners will be able to
  • Prepare adults learning English to apply appropriate reading strategies to a variety of academic and professional contexts and purposes
  • Use instructional strategies, including digital technology, to help struggling and developing readers close gaps in skills and conceptual knowledge
  • Improve reading comprehension through robust vocabulary instruction
  • Enhance reading skills and comprehension through writing instruction that balances sentence-level, discourse, and interactive processes and practices
  • Inspire students to become lifelong readers who engage in extensive reading outside of school and professional contexts
[more]

front cover of Preparing Adult English Learners to Write for College and the Workplace
Preparing Adult English Learners to Write for College and the Workplace
Kirsten Schaetzel, Joy Kreeft Peyton, and Rebeca Fernández
University of Michigan Press, 2019
This volume has been written as a response to the new types of communicative demands that the twenty-first century has brought to the workplace. Today’s adult education programs must prepare students to understand complex operations, be problem-solvers, be computer literate, and be fluent in professional English when speaking and writing. As a result, writing has become a bigger need in the field of adult education, and writing instruction must follow suit and extend beyond transactional writing (taking notes, correcting grammar, writing narratives) to rhetorically flexible writing for multiple audiences, purposes, and contexts, whether for a college course or in the workplace. Some of the specific types of writing students need now are the ability to: write argumentative, technical, and informative texts; create, argue for, and support a thesis statement; summarize; write concisely with appropriate vocabulary; produce a well-edited piece understandable to native speakers; and use and credit sources.
 
The volume is organized into four parts: Setting the Stage for Teaching Writing, Supporting the Writing Process, Working with Beginning Writers, and Aligning Writing with Accountability Systems. Chapters are written by current (or former) adult educators with experience across levels. Each chapter introduces an approach based on research that can guide writing instruction and provides specific guidance and tools for implementation. Questions open and close the chapters to guide reading and frame future exploration. JoAnn (Jodi) Crandall has written the Epilogue.

Readers will discover ways to move adults into higher education and careers by helping them be college and career ready, to integrate writing into the existing curriculum in adult education programs at all levels, including content classes, and to teach writing according to national and state standards.
 
[more]

logo for University of Michigan Press
Project Management for Researchers
A Practical, Stress-Free Guide to Getting Organized
Shiri Noy
University of Michigan Press, 2024
Learning how to organize and manage research is important for both the researcher and for advancing research. However, graduate students are often trained in theories, methods, and disciplines, but rarely in the organizational, administrative, and metacognitive skills required to manage research projects. Moreover, several disciplines are decrying a reproducibility crisis, with a concerted academic push toward open-access approaches. By clearly organizing research, graduate students and researchers can ensure that they are able to account for their methodological, theoretical,  and other research decisions: to reviewers, to funding agencies, and to support the development of new ideas and exciting offshoots of projects. 

Project Management for Researchers tackles the how, what, and why of project management. It offers step-by-step guidance on choosing tools and developing a personalized system that will help the reader manage and organize their research so that steps and decisions are documented for accountability and reproducibility. Readers will find worksheets they can adapt to their own needs, priorities, and research as well as practical tips on issues ranging from emails to scheduling. Suitable for work across methods, experience levels, and disciplines and adaptable for those working alone, with others, or as team managers, this book will guide readers between various research stages–from planning, to execution, to adjustment of research projects big and small.
[more]

logo for Georgetown University Press
Pronouncing English
A Stress-Based Approach with CD-ROM
Richard V. Teschner and M. Stanley Whitley
Georgetown University Press, 2004

Pronouncing English is a textbook for teaching English phonetics and phonology, offering an original "stress-based" approach while incorporating all the standard course topics. Drawing on current linguistic theory, it uniquely analyzes prosody first, and then discusses its effects on pronunciation—emphasizing suprasegmental features such as meter, stress, and intonation, then the vowels and consonants themselves.

Distinguished by being the first work of its kind to be based on an exhaustive statistical analysis of all the lexical entries of an entire dictionary, Pronouncing English is complemented by a list of symbols and a glossary. Richard Teschner and M. Stanley Whitley present an improved description of English pronunciation and conclude each chapter with suggestions on how to do a better job of teaching it. An appendix with a brief introduction to acoustic phonetics—the basis for the perception vs. the production of sounds—is also included. Revolutionary in its field, Pronouncing English declares that virtually all aspects of English pronunciation—from the vowel system to the articulation of syllables, words, and sentences—are determined by the presence or absence of stress.

The accompanying CD-ROM carries audio recordings of many of the volume's exercises, more than 100 text and sound files, and data files on which the statistical observations were based.

[more]

front cover of Pronunciation Myths
Pronunciation Myths
Applying Second Language Research to Classroom Teaching
Linda Grant with Donna M. Brinton, Tracey Derwing and Murray J. Munro, John Field, Judy Gilbert, John Murphy, Ron Thomson, Beth Zielinski and Lynda Yates
University of Michigan Press, 2014

This volume was conceived as a "best practices" resource for pronunciation and speaking teachers in the way that Vocabulary Myths by Keith S. Folse is one for reading and vocabulary teachers. Like others in the Myths series, this book combines research with good pedagogical practices.

The book opens with a Prologue by Linda Grant (author of the Well Said textbook series), which reviews the last four decades of pronunciation teaching, the differences between accent and intelligibility, the rudiments of the English sound system, and other factors related to the ways that pronunciation is learned and taught.

The myths challenged in this book are:

§  Once you’ve been speaking a second language for years, it’s too late to change your pronunciation. (Derwing and Munro)

§  Pronunciation instruction is not appropriate for beginning-level learners. (Zielinski and Yates)

§  Pronunciation teaching has to establish in the minds of language learners a set of distinct consonant and vowel sounds.  (Field)

§  Intonation is hard to teach. (Gilbert)

§  Students would make better progress if they just practiced more. (Grant)

§  Accent reduction and pronunciation instruction are the same thing. (Thomson)

§  Teacher training programs provide adequate preparation in how to teach pronunciation (Murphy).

The book concludes with an Epilogue by Donna M. Brinton, who synthesizes some of the best practices explored in the volume.

[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter