Issues in TESOL: Sound, Meaning, and Form

Sound, Meaning, and Form, is third in the Issues in TESOL (teaching of English to speakers of other languages) book series. It covers those concepts of most importance for teaching the ‘what’ of language (pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar) as opposed to the ‘how’ (listening, speaking, reading, writing). Focus is on developing a means of understanding how best to teach each of these aspects for both native and non-native speaking teachers, along with how best to provide learners with the means of improving them. The reason is because one of the most important aspects of being able to speak a foreign language is the study of vocabulary items, for without them, learners would be unable to express or articulate themselves. However, learners must also be able to effectively pronounce the vocabulary items that they use, and utilize form to structure sentences in order to engage in communication. The focus is on developing within you a means to best provide your learners with effective pronunciation skills, as well as vocabulary item recognition and use, combined with the ability to employ form that is efficient for them to be understood while communicating. Pertinent to this are those teaching strategies and techniques that can be delivered in ways that are relevant, timely, and encouraging, those games and activities that provide both direct and indirect teaching, along with those beneficial testing procedures that involve practicality, reliability, validity, washback, and spin-off. Other books in the series are: Perspectives and Practice; Implementations; Sound, Meaning, and Form; and, Resources.