Abstract

This edited volume brings together 10 cutting-edge empirical studies on the realities of English language learning, teaching and testing in a wide range of global contexts where English is an additional language. It covers three themes: learners’ development of interactional competence, the organization of teaching and testing practices, and sociocultural and ideological forces that may impact classroom interaction. With a decided focus on English-as-a-Foreign-Language contexts, the studies involve varied learner populations, from children to young adults to adults, in different learning environments around the world. The insights gained will be of interest to EFL professionals, as well as teacher trainers, policymakers and researchers.

Hanh thi Nguyen is Professor of Applied Linguistics in the Department of English and Applied Linguistics at Hawai'i Pacific University. Her research interests include the development of interactional competence in a second or professional language, social interaction in language learning situations and learners' transforming identities.

Taiane Malabarba is Assistant Professor in the Language Department at Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, Brazil. Her research interests include EFL teaching and learning, classroom interaction, language policy and teacher education.

Speaking 'global' with a breathtaking diversity of authors, issues, and geographical regions, Nguyen and Malabarba’s carefully curated volume offers exciting new exhibits of how conversation analysis may be usefully combined with other investigative approaches to address such central applied linguistic issues as learning, teaching, and testing.

This volume offers an empirically grounded and theoretically informed panorama of the interactional practices involved in EFL education across a rich variety of national and educational contexts. It provides a powerful demonstration of how a conversation analytic perspective allows us to uncover the affordances and challenges of language learning, teaching and testing as social processes.

This well-written, insightful volume provides rich empirical details illuminating the constraints and possibilities of English language learning, teaching, and testing in diverse contexts where English is an additional language or a workplace lingua franca. The fine-grained analyses showcasing the realities of EFL at the micro level of social activity reveal important implications for ELT policies and practices around the world.