Understanding the Language Classroom

SIMON GIEVE is Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at the University of Leicester, UK. He has taught EFL for many years in Japan and later in Britain. His interests are in classroom language learning, teacher education, critical discourse analysis, and the social relationship between first and second language speakers. IN S K. MILLER is Assistant Professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Brazil. Her research focuses on language teacher education and development. She is a core member of the Lancaster University-based Exploratory Practice Centre (EPCentre) a

The starting point for this collection is a chapter by Dick Allwright on the language learning and teaching classroom experience entitled Six Promising Directions in Applied Linguistics.The starting point for this collection is a chapter by Dick Allwright on the language learning and teaching classroom experience entitled Six Promising Directions in Applied Linguistics. The other distinguished contributors respond to this discussion with their own interpretations and from their own experience. The collection problematizes prescription, efficiency, and technical solutions as orientations to classroom language learning. Complexity and idiosyncrasy, on the other hand, are recognized as central concepts in a move towards centralizing teachers' and learners' own understanding of 'classroom life', in the contexts of language learning, adult literacy education and language teacher education.