The untold story of the root cause of America's education crisis--and the seemingly endless cycle of multigenerational poverty. It was only after years within the education reform movement that Natalie Wexler stumbled across a hidden explanation for our country's frustrating lack of progress when it comes to providing every child with a quality education. The problem wasn't one of the usual scapegoats: lazy teachers, shoddy facilities, lack of accountability. It was something no one was talking about: the elementary school curriculum's intense focus on decontextualized reading comprehension "skills" at the expense of actual knowledge. In the tradition of Dale Russakoff's The Prize and Dana Goldstein's The Teacher Wars, Wexler brings together history, research, and compelling characters to pull back the curtain on this fundamental flaw in our education system--one that fellow reformers, journalists, and policymakers have long overlooked, and of which the general public, including many parents, remains unaware. But The Knowledge Gap isn't just a story of what schools have gotten so wrong--it also follows innovative educators who are in the process of shedding their deeply ingrained habits, and describes the rewards that have come along: students who are not only excited to learn but are also acquiring the knowledge and vocabulary that will enable them to succeed. If we truly want to fix our education system and unlock the potential of our neediest children, we have no choice but to pay attention.

The 7 Steps to a Language-Rich, Interactive Foreign Language Classroom are research-based strategies designed to increase comprehensible input and provide low-stress opportunities for language output and interaction. These practical techniques provide an essential foundation that ensures students are motivated and engaged, while offering access points to any target language in a way that is easy to implement and comprehensively scaffolded.

Teachers across the country are seeking ways to make their multicultural classrooms come alive with student talk about content. Content-Area Conversations: How to Plan Discussion-Based Lessons for Diverse Language Learners is a practical, hands-on guide to creating and managing environments that spur sophisticated levels of student communication, both oral and written. Paying special attention to the needs of English language learners, the authors *Detail research-based steps for designing lessons that spark student talk; *Share real-life classroom scenarios and dialogues that bring theory to life; *Describe easy-to-use assessments for all grade levels; *Provide rubrics, worksheets, sentence frames, and other imaginative tools that encourage academic communication; and *Offer guiding questions to help teachers plan instruction. Teachers at any grade level, in any content area, will find a wide variety of strategies in this book to help students simultaneously learn English and learn in English. Drawing both on decades of research data and on the authors' real-life experiences as teachers of English language learners, this book is replete with ideas for fostering real academic discourse in your classroom.

This book investigates and analyzes the way in which factors such as communication apprehension, self-perceived communicative competence and group dynamics influence the communicative behavior of a foreign-language learner. It also focuses on interpersonal communication, group communication and public speaking. Using selected models it characterizes and analyzes all types of communication with reference to communication in the language classroom, with a particular emphasis on the foreign-language context. The author also presents some conclusions and implications for both language teachers and language learners, as well as offering suggestions for further research in the field of classroom communication. The results of the study serve as a point of reference for teachers interested in the construct of willingness to communicate and other communication variables related to the issue of communication in a foreign language. The work also raises teachers' awareness of individual learner differences in the context of communication in the foreign-language classroom.

This book examines the fundamental interactional dimension to foreign language communication, including the establishment, development, consolidation and maintenance of interpersonal relations. It argues that interpersonal language use such as small talk, casual conversation and gossipy talk is not only key to meaningful and productive communication but that it is an essential dimension with respect to successful foreign language interaction and that engaging in interpersonal language is communicatively valuable and worthwhile in its own right. Crucially, it explores how teaching and learning can utilize the role of social talk and relational engagement in helping interactants to express, voice and convey their own values, attitudes and beliefs. Finally, it develops a critical relational pedagogy focused on language speakers’ needs, objectives and desires. Redressing the imbalance between transactional and interactional language teaching, and stressing the importance of phatic and relational language use in helping language users achieve their communicative goals, it will appeal to researchers, postgraduates, and scholars in the fields of education and linguistics.

A book for the curious and passionate 21st century language teachers and teacher trainers. Tired of reading about the wonders of technology enhanced project-based learning but not knowing where to seek inspiration to start to adopt this teaching approach? A team of in-service teachers, teacher trainers, pre-service teachers and researchers have worked together to present a simple, engaging and practical book to offer fellow education professionals stimulating ideas for their teaching practice. Joint efforts for innovation: Working together to improve foreign language teaching in the 21st century offers: Inspiring classroom projects and innovative teaching experiences. A compilation of digital tools and resources for the foreign language classroom. Pioneering proposals to open up the classroom doors. Problem-solving and inquiry-based tasks that promote team work. Honest reflections from practitioners on their classroom practices. This book includes accessible examples of teacher-led classroom research small-scale studies. calls for teachers to do research in their classrooms. personal accounts on the importance of school internships for pre-service teachers. This book is an invitation for practicing teachers and teacher trainers to be creative and to develop learning skills, literacy skills and life skills. Are you ready to become an innovative 21st century educator?