Castledown Books

Insights into Digital Literacy in Language Teaching

2024-02-02T22:18:38+11:00

Insights into Digital Literacy in Language Teaching explores digital literacy, digital pedagogies, digital technologies, and digital language teaching. The book responds to the need for language teachers to develop and improve digital competencies and digital language teaching strategies. It highlights five key elements of digital literacy: information search and evaluation; creation; communication; collaboration; and online safety. It provides a theoretical basis and a practical guide for language teachers and researchers with any degree of experience in technology-enhanced language teaching. It is a valuable resource for pre-service and in-service language teachers, teacher educators, and researchers.

Online Language Teaching: Crises and Creativities

2024-03-21T23:02:26+11:00

The book series “Developing Online Language Pedagogies” covers online teaching and learning in a way that makes it relevant to practitioners and researchers. The first volume, “Online Language Teaching: Crises and Creativities,” exemplifies this approach by collecting creative and altruistic responses of language educators and organisations to the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic. Colleagues from Canada, the Czech Republic, Germany, Korea, Spain, and the UK present their individual and institutional reactions to the need for rapid staff training in times of lockdown and an emergency move to online language teaching. The volume culminates in a collaborative conclusion where all the authors jointly reflect on exceptional circumstances and how the crisis can give rise to creative solutions.

Contents

List of contributors

Preface

Chapter 1: Introduction
Ursula Stickler and Martina Emke

Chapter 2: Teacher training in times of Covid-19
Pauline Ernest & Sarah Heiser

Chapter 3: Creating presence in remote learning: Moving a participatory
f2f workshop concept online
Aline Germain-Rutherford, Banafsheh Karamifar, & Tomáš Klinka

Chapter 4: Webinars as a rapid response for training language teachers to teach
online in 2020
Jackie Robbins & Joseph Hopkins

Chapter 5: “Moving your language teaching online” Toolkit: Teachers’ early
reflections on their experience and skills
Karina von Lindeiner-Stráský, Hélène Pulker, & Elodie Vialleton

Chapter 6: Transitioning to online teaching: Language teacher wellbeing
during the Covid-19 crisis
Sun Shin

Chapter 7: Microblending as a response to Covid-19
David Bish

Chapter 8: Collaborative conclusion
Ursula Stickler and Martina Emke and all authors

Index

Insights into Teaching and Learning Writing

2024-03-21T20:07:13+11:00

Writing is one of the most challenging skills for a language learner to acquire due its sheer complexity, and language teachers are faced with a demanding task in the teaching and testing of writing. A great deal of research on different aspects of writing has been carried out to date, however despite the abundance of publications in this field, few books aim to offer insights into teaching and learning writing for early career teachers that shed light on writing instruction in jargon-free discourse. This book aims to fill this perceived gap through presenting relevant conceptual and theoretical frameworks of second language writing research and shedding light on the implications of the recent research findings in a clear and practice-oriented style. In this way, it is intended as a companion book for language teachers who include writing as a part of their courses, in particular, new teachers as they embark on their teaching careers.

“This book is a welcome resource in the education of language teachers. It is well known that learning to write in a second language and teaching others to do the same can be challenging. Readers of this volume are supported both intellectually and affectively as they learn how to meet the challenge.”
— Diane Larsen-Freeman, Professor Emerita of Education and of Linguistics, University of Michigan

“This timely and broad-based collection promises to provide key insights in and for the fields of writing pedagogy and writing assessment, written by an array of experts working in diverse locations. Presented in a teacher-friendly way, each chapter offers ideas that teachers can immediately try out in their own classrooms.”
— Martin East, Professor of Language Education, The University of Auckland

“Do you want to know how to best teach second language writing? Then put Insights into Teaching and Learning Writing on your required reading list! This book is a must-read for early-career writing practitioners. It encompasses the work of renowned scholars who provide explicit, theoretically grounded and research-informed guidance on how to approach various aspects of second language writing pedagogy. Read this book and learn from the best!”
— Elena Cotos, Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics, Iowa State University

“This book provides a comprehensive overview of current theory and pedagogy in the teaching and assessment of L2 writing. Rich in theoretical insights and practical examples it provides a valuable resource for teachers, curriculum designers, graduate students and others interested in approaches to the teaching of writing.”
— Jack C. Richards, Victoria University Wellington and University of Sydney

Global Fitness for Global People

2024-01-28T17:41:09+11:00

Global Fitness for Global People is for all those wanting to thrive in today’s global workplaces and to flourish in culturally diverse contexts. For this you need Global Fitness. Such competence does not develop by chance; individuals and organisations each need to foster it deliberately. This book explains why and how. Global Fitness results from tackling three key areas – establishing your Global Fitness goals, mastering your Global Fitness toolkit, and moulding the Global Fitness environment.

The approach of Global Fitness for Global People is in line with the Chinese saying “If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.” In today’s rapidly changing and uncertain environment, people need sound insights and guiding principles to shape their actions – whatever the situation and whenever or wherever it occurs. Global Fitness for Global People prepares you for this challenge, providing you with a set of core principles and tools that you can apply flexibly and dynamically to meet your own and your organisation’s needs – now and in a changing future.

Each of Global Fitness for Global People’s 15 chapters uses thought-provoking authentic examples from a wide variety of situations to illustrate important learning points. It draws on state-of-the-art research and practice to explain the key issues and offers you reflective guidelines and activities for professional development purposes. Part 3, which focuses on the Global Fitness environment, goes a step further by providing a strategic perspective. It is especially interesting and useful to senior management and Learning & Development decision-makers who have the task of promoting Global Fitness in their organisation.

The book is essential reading if you are leading, managing, or working in culturally diverse situations and hence need Global Fitness in order to achieve effective collaboration. Whatever your sector – international business, not-for-profit, third-sector, education, healthcare, research, politics, government, diplomacy and more – this book will help you and your organisation to perform more successfully.

Introduction

1. Becoming Global: Mapping your Development Journey

Part 1: Understanding your goals: Global Fitness in Practice

2. Global Personal Qualities: Growing in Self-awareness

3. Global Knowledge & Understanding: Establishing Common Ground

4. Global Communication Skills: Enhancing Mutual Understanding

5. Global Rapport Management Skills: Developing Strong Relationships

Part 2: Mastering your development toolkit: Global Fitness Engagement

6. How to Embrace the Unfamiliar, Reflect and Adapt

7. How to Build Global Relations and Enhance Rapport

8. How to Collaborate and Succeed in Global Teams

9. How to Exercise Global Leadership and Handle the Context

10. How to Manage Ethical Challenges and Maintain Integrity

Part 3: Moulding the context: Global Fitness Environment

11. Ensuring Well-being: How to Establish the Essentials

12. Promoting Learning and Innovation: How to Leverage Cultural Diversity

13. Identifying Development Priorities: How to Monitor and Benchmark Performance and Satisfaction

14. Managing Development Initiatives: How to Plan and Implement Programmes

Concluding Reflections

15. Becoming Global: A Continuing Need

Becoming a Language Teacher

2024-02-19T16:36:49+11:00

Pre- and in-service teachers are given the skills they need to meet the needs of all language learners in today’s diverse classrooms, while encouraging them to develop a personal approach to language teaching. Using a warm, supportive tone, the author clearly explains the fundamental concepts of second language acquisition and language teaching. A much-needed resource at a time when it is critical for all mainstream teachers to focus on language, this guide describes how to develop language for academic needs as well as for communication purpose and addresses the latest trends in language teaching.