Language Teaching: Integrational Linguistic Approaches

Eight international academics and researchers contribute eight chapters offering language education scholars, researchers, and practitioners an examination of how language teaching might be understood and conducted if an integrational linguistic perspective were adopted. This perspective differs radically from much mainstream theory, which assumes that languages are essentially stable systems comprising units and rules for their combination, and are amenable to scientific inquiry. Following an overview of language teaching and integrational linguistics, the text contains chapters exploring how an integrational linguistic stance might help disentangle the conflicting considerations and contradictory assumptions present in a variety of contemporary language-teaching situations, including first-, second-, and foreign-language classrooms in diverse settings--India, the UK, the U.S., and Hong Kong--with different age-groups of students, whether the focus is on speech or writing, and in informal settings as well. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)