Читать книгу How Languages are Learned 4th edition - Nina Spada - Страница 4

How Languages Are Learned (HLAL) started out as a series of professional development workshops for teachers in Quebec, Canada, where we both worked for many years. Three editions of the book have now travelled far from those origins. When we were working on the first edition in the 1980s and 1990s we were still in the early days of remarkable growth of research in second language acquisition. In updating the research for each new edition, the decisions about what to include have grown more difficult. Keeping the book to a reasonable length has often meant choosing between classics in the field and important new studies, of which there are now so many. In this edition, we have annotated some ‘Suggestions for further reading’ at the end of each chapter. We encourage readers to follow these readings and the reference list to deepen their understanding of topics that we can only introduce here.

In this fourth edition of HLAL, we have added ‘Questions for reflection’ at the end of each chapter, and we have included some new ‘Activities’ that give readers opportunities to explore some of the topics. Another new feature of this edition is a companion website which contains additional activities, readings, and other web-based material and resources to enhance your reading and understanding of the contents of the book. It will also provide opportunities for readers to interact with others and to share their ideas for teaching and learning languages.

The website for How Languages are Learned can be accessed at www.oup.com/elt/teacher/hlal.

We are currently working on a new series of books for teachers, the Oxford Key Concepts for the Language Classroom. Each volume, written by a different author, will focus on a specific topic (such as assessment, content-based language teaching, literacy, and oral interaction), reviewing the relevant research and linking the findings to classroom practice. We hope that the books in this series will encourage teachers to continue learning about some of the topics that are introduced in HLAL.

We hope that both new readers and those who have read the previous editions of HLAL will find ideas and information that will challenge and inspire them to make their own contributions to second language learning, teaching, and research.

Patsy M. Lightbown, Harwich, MA, USA

Nina Spada, Toronto, ON, Canada