Input for Instructed L2 Learners: The Relevance of Relevance: 22 (Second Language Acquisition) - Softcover

Niżegorodcew, Anna

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1853599379 ISBN 13: 9781853599378

Publisher: Multilingual Matters, 2007

Synopsis

This book makes Relevance Theory (RT) relevant for L2 teachers and L2 teacher educators, in particular those working in foreign language teaching contexts. L2 classroom discourse data collected in seven research projects in the years 1984 – 2004 are reinterpreted in this book in the light of Relevance Theory - a theory of interpretation of the incoming messages. In this perspective the teachers’ input for instructed L2 learners facilitates shifts in the learners’ attention from meaning to form and vice versa. Such shifts of attention, according to Relevance Theory, change the level of expected optimal relevance of classroom communication, either focusing the students on form-oriented communication (accuracy), on meaning-oriented communication (fluency) or on meaning and form-oriented communication (fluency combined with accuracy). The latter is considered optimal for L2 learning/acquisition. Apart from the main focus on the relevance-theoretic interpretation of the teachers’ input, the book presents an overview of other theoretical approaches to the question of input for instructed L2 learners: the SLA approach, the communicative L2 teaching perspective, and the L2 classroom discourse approach.

About this title

About the Author

Anna Niżegorodcew graduated from the English and the Psychology Departments of the Jagiellonian University of Kraków, Poland. She took her PhD at the Philosophical Faculty of the same University. She is Professor Emerita in Applied Linguistics. She taught for 40 years at the English Department of the Jagiellonian University. She was head of the Applied Linguistics Section of the English Department and head of the Jagiellonian University Teacher Training College. She has published a number of books and articles in the areas of teaching English, second language acquisition and second and foreign language teacher education. Her present interests cover teaching English to third age students, teaching English for intercultural communication and international understanding. 

Edition details

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1853599379
• ISBN 13: 9781853599378
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 200