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Written by a global team, this up-to-date introduction to applied linguistics helps students learn what it's like to do applied linguistics, and not just read about theoretical concepts. First, it provides frameworks for understanding both the shared characteristics of work in applied linguistics and the diversity of topics and analyses. Each chapter then highlights a topic area, covering key concepts, a specific project undertaken by the authors, and their personal reflections on entering the field. Hands-on analysis and other application activities also encourage students to test different skills related to each chapter. Finally, students are introduced to the tools they need to continue in applied linguistics: how to read and write empirical research, how to evaluate primary literature, and starting points for expanding their interest in specific subject areas. The authors provide examples from different geographical regions and languages to engage an international audience. At the same time, multilingualism, interdisciplinarity, and technology are integrated as themes within the text to reflect how these areas are now interwoven throughout applied linguistics.
You step into a language classroom as the teacher. You have been teaching this class of adult students for six months. You greet the students and begin class. What kinds of activities do the students do in class: extensive reading, listening, and responding to the teacher, scripted conversations, or information exchange activities? When planning your lessons, do you plan specific, explicit instruction on grammar or vocabulary, or are the structures and vocabulary presented implicitly in context only? When the students make a mistake, as they inevitably will, did this error come from their first language or somewhere else? How do you motivate students or encourage quiet students to use the language? These are just some of the questions that language teachers face every day.
Having been introduced to a range of work in applied linguistics, and having worked through some activities that asked you to analyze language-related information, you are ready to begin exploring your own interests within the field of applied linguistics. Exploring your own interests requires a solid knowledge base of the research in your chosen area and the ability to communicate knowledge to others. In order to gain this knowledge and learn to communicate with others in the field, you need to learn the discipline-specific reading and writing skills used in applied linguistics. While acquiring these skills may seem daunting at first, understanding why applied linguists write the way they do can help you read research articles more strategically and produce research papers that meet the expectations and needs of readers in applied linguistics. This chapter focuses on the structure of empirical research papers and gives tips for both reading and writing these kinds of papers in the field.
Throughout this book, you’ve been introduced to a wide range of work in applied linguistics. Now that you’ve seen some of the diversity of the field, it may be useful to take a step back and consider what you read in Part B in a larger context. When reading individual chapters, it’s easy to get caught up in the details of the information presented, and you may begin to wonder how all these different studies can possibly belong to a single field. The following overview of the themes found in the book will highlight the key features that unify this broad range of work as well as some of the core issues that are important in applied linguistics today. To do this, we return to the definition of applied linguistics presented in the first chapter, considering how it connects to key characteristics and themes that have come up throughout the book. We’ll take a look back at concrete examples from various chapters that illustrate these ideas.