New Perspectives on Material Mediation in Language Learner Pedagogy: (56 Educational Linguistics)

This volume distinguishes itself from existing research on materials design, development, and evaluation, and focuses on material mediation in actual processes of teaching and learning, a subject that has been under-researched in the field of applied linguistics and second language education. This edited volume includes diverse perspectives on the roles that materials play in language learner pedagogy. Moving beyond the field of English language teaching, readers will find novel contributions offering a diversity of language teaching contexts, learner populations, and topics in the theory and/or practice of second and foreign language teaching. Chapters explore the ways in which affordances and constraints of classroom materials impact teachers and learners, while at the same time they bring their own (evolving) resources, identities, beliefs, and expertise to modify and adapt the materials to better suit their local language teaching and learning environments. As such, this text is ideal for use as supplemental reading in a wide variety of applied linguistics, second/foreign language education, TESOL, and instructional course design courses.

Table of Contents:
1. The Role of Materials in the Secondary Spanish Immersion Classroom Ecology.- 2. Textbook-Mediated Teaching: A Case Study of Four Language Teachers in Higher Education in China.- 3. Mediating Materials: Contextualizing Language Learning in an ESL Classroom.- 4. How Teaching Strategies Are Mediated by Contextualized Images in Teaching Materials.- 5. Pretexts: Igniter Materials of Dramatic Elsewhere in EFL Classrooms.- 6. Beyond Grammar-Translation: Material Mediation as a Pivotal Feature of Effective Translation Pedagogy.- 7. Mediated Development: A Nexus of Dialogic and Material Mediation in the Second Language Classroom.- 8. Spanish Language Learners as Meaning-Making Agents: Translanguaging and Material Mediation in Task-Based Language Teaching.- 9. The Impact of Curricular Materials on Learner Agency: An Ecological Perspective on Role-Immersion Pedagogy.- 10. Material Mediation in L2 Writing Activities in a College Russian as a Foreign Language Classroom in Japan.- 11. Technology and Translanguaging: Examining the Roles of iPads in Collaborative Translation Activities with Young Emergent Bilinguals.- 12. Materials in an English Language Arts Newcomer Class for High School Seniors in the US.- 13. The Manifestations and Constraints of Equity Materials on Undergraduate L2 Students’ Writing Development.- 14. Assessment Materials (that) Mediate Second Language Development in Testing Contexts.- 15. L2 Voices and Materials as Tools in Pronunciation Pedagogy.

About the Author :

Darren K. LaScotte is Teaching Specialist in the Minnesota English Language Program at the University of Minnesota (U.S.A.), where he teaches English as a second language to international students. He is co-author of Intercultural Skills in Action (2021, University of Michigan Press) and Voice and Mirroring In L2 Pronunciation Instruction (2022, Equinox), . Other recent publications appear in The Modern Language Journal, RELC Journal, and Language Awareness.

Corinne S. Mathieu, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor in the Professional Program in Education at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay (U.S.A.). Her research and teaching focus on preparing bilingual and dual language/immersion teachers to integrate content and language in their instruction. She studies the role of materials in these content-based language education contexts as well as teacher knowledge and identity. Recent publications appear in Classroom Discourse, Language Teaching, and Folio.