Teaching and Researching Speaking: Third Edition

Now in its third edition, Teaching and Researching Speaking suggests that we have less understanding than we might of important meaning-making aspects of speech such as prosody, gaze, affect, and the ways speakers collaborate and negotiate with one another in interaction. As the only book available to cover both the theoretical and applied aspects of teaching speaking in a second language classroom setting, this text is a key resource for courses focusing on speaking in a second language. This new edition is fully revised and includes include new information on technology and online resources, quantitative trends in conversation analysis, iconicity and universality, and trends in cross-cultural research in conversation analysis.

Teaching and Researching Speaking provides an overview of the main approaches to researching spoken language and their practical application to teaching, classroom materials, and assessment. The history and current practices of teaching and researching speaking are presented through the lens of bigger theoretical issues about the object of study in linguistics, social attitudes to the spoken form, and the relationships between spoken and written language. A unique feature of the book is the way it clearly explains the nature of speaking and how it is researched and puts it into the context of a readable and holistic overview of language theory. This new edition is fully updated and revised to reflect the latest developments on classroom materials and oral assessment, as well as innovations in conversation analysis. The resources section is brought up-to-date with new media and currently available networks, online corpora, and mobile applications. This is a key resource for applied linguistics students, English language teachers, teacher trainers, and novice researchers.