Improving Foreign Language Teaching: Towards a Research-Based Curriculum and Pedagogy

Improving Foreign Language Teaching provides teachers and teacher trainers with a research-based structure for the effective teaching and assessment of second languages. Offering a framework that can be used to support implementation of the national curriculum, it also presents practical activities and materials, and guidance on how student progress can be monitored and recorded. Based on international research and the findings of an expert consortium founded by the authors and involving teachers in a range of secondary schools', the book focusses on skills development and linguistic knowledge, and on an assessment system which truly reflects how learners progress in language learning. Improving Foreign Language Teaching identifies and exemplifies eight key principles for effective language learning: -Improved target language input -High quality planned oral interaction -Strategies for coping with communication difficulties -Greater access to more challenging spoken and written texts -Feedback for improved self-confidence -Developing writing in its own right -Grammar and vocabulary for the service of language skills Taking as its starting point the challenge of the curriculum in flux and complex pedagogical approaches, this book offers clear guidance for effective planning, teaching and learning. It will be essential reading for all those concerned with the improvement of language learning in the secondary classroom.

Table of Contents:
1. The problem with 'improving language learning' 2. Oral interaction in the second language classroom 3. Reading and listening: Developing knowledge and making the most of it 4. Developing the learner through writing: Recursion and compromise 5. A pedagogical assessment system 6. Preparing to become, and continuing to be, a language teacher 7. The PDCinMFL project 8. Putting the 'Principles' into practice 9. By way of conclusion

About the Author :
Ernesto Macaro is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Oxford, UK. Suzanne Graham is Professor of Language and Education at the Institute of Education, University of Reading, UK. Robert Woore is a lecturer in Applied Linguistics at Oxford University Department of Education (OUDE), UK.