Language Exploration and Awareness

Book excerpt: "Language Exploration and Awareness: A Resource Book for Teachers, Third Edition" shows English teachers how they can expand their curriculum beyond the traditional emphases on grammar and syntax, to help their students learn about many aspects of the English language, including general semantics, regional and social dialects, syntax, spelling, history of the English language, social language conventions, lexicography, and word origins. Clear, practical, and reader-friendly, the text reviews basic aspects of English language study in classrooms, then illustrates how teachers can create student-centered, inquiry-oriented activities for the learners in their classrooms. Written from a sociocultural perspective, this text stresses the uses of authentic language as it is used by real people for real purposes in diverse social contexts. Changes in the Third Edition are: all chapters have been thoroughly updated to address new developments in the world and in the field of English and language arts education; the chapters in Section II include new Student Explorations - activities designed by pre- and in-service teachers that readers can use with students in their classrooms; and new in this edition are references throughout several chapters to Web sites that instructors and students will find useful. This text is intended as text for undergraduate and master's level English language arts courses on the pedagogies of language teaching, and as an introduction to language or introduction to linguistics courses - particularly those emphasizing language study from a sociocultural perspective; and for courses preparing teachers of English as a new language. The text is also intended as a resource for current classroom teachers.