New Insights into Foreign Language Learning and Teaching

This book aims to offer insights into cognitive, sociocultural and pedagogical aspects of foreign language learning and teaching. It focuses on different competences, such as communicative competence, intercultural competence and the autonomy of the language learner. A significant feature of this volume is that it bears the fruit of collaboration between researchers and practitioners on both sides of the Atlantic and, therefore, offers a variety of perspectives. The book is divided into four parts, focusing on the following four areas of research: sociocultural theory, communicative language teaching, intercultural competence and learner autonomy. The first chapter of each part covers theoretical issues by outlining the origins and development of a theory and explaining its core concepts. In the second chapter, theoretical, empirical and applied research is reviewed, and the implications for foreign language learning and teaching are discussed. The third chapter of each part is devoted to the application of the theories in focus. It presents either an example of a research project or an application of the theory in terms of developing materials and/or giving suggestions for good practice in the foreign language classroom.

The Editors: Kees van Esch is Associate Professor in Spanish and Applied Linguistics and a teacher trainer at ILS, the graduate school of education of Nijmegen University. He obtained his doctorate from this university in 1987. The areas of interest in his research are applied linguistics and the didactics of foreign languages in general and of Spanish in particular. A former publication of Kees van Esch at Peter Lang is A Framework for Freedom. Learner Autonomy in Foreign Language Teacher Education. Oliver St. John is an Englishman now working in Sweden where he is responsible for teacher education within the department of modern languages at the University of Gävle. He is currently doing an M.A. in language pedagogy at Uppsala University and is also involved in writing language skills development teaching materials for secondary school pupils.