Product Description

Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, Fifth Edition, by H. Douglas Brown, is the classic second language acquisition text used by teacher education programs worldwide. Principles introduces key concepts through definitions of terms, thought-provoking questions, charts, and spiraling. New "Classroom Connections" encourage students to consider the implications of research for classroom pedagogy. An up-to-date bibliography and new glossary provide quick access to important works and key terminology in the field. The fifth edition takes a comprehensive look at foundations of language teaching through discussions of the latest research in the field, including: *Vygotsky's and Bakhtin's theories *Thorndike's law of effect *error treatment, noticing, recasts *intercultural communication *language policy and politics *corpus linguistics *"hot topics" in SLA *connectionism and emergentism *flow theory, willingness to communicate *strategies-based instruction *contrastive rhetoric *attribution theory, self-efficacy *output hypothesis Also by H.Douglas Brown: Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom Practices Strategies for Success: A Practical Guide to Learning English

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #33334 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 410 pages

From the Back Cover

Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, Fifth Edition, by H. Douglas Brown, is the classic second language acquisition text used by teacher education programs worldwide. Principles introduces key concepts through definitions of terms, thought-provoking questions, charts, and spiraling. New "Classroom Connections" encourage students to consider the implications of research for classroom pedagogy. An up-to-date bibliography and new glossary provide quick access to important works and key terminology in the field.

The fifth edition takes a comprehensive look at foundations of language teaching through discussions of the latest research in the field, including:

• Vygotsky's and Bakhtin's theories
• Thorndike's law of effect
• error treatment, noticing, recasts
• intercultural communication
• language policy and politics
• corpus linguistics
• "hot topics" in SLA
• connectionism and emergentism
• flow theory, willingness to communicate
• strategies-based instruction
• contrastive rhetoric
• attribution theory, self-efficacy
• output hypothesis

Also by H. Douglas Brown:

About the Author
Dr. H. Douglas Brown, a professor in the MA-TESOL program at San Francisco State University, has written many articles, teacher training books, and textbooks on language pedagogy. A past president of TESOL and recipient of the James E. Alatis Award for Distinguished Service, Dr. Brown has lectured to English language teaching audiences around the world.

Customer Reviews

One-stop resource on language learning
Language learning and language teaching are complex and difficult subjects. H. Douglas Brown provides a good summary of key elements in the field in his newest (4th) edition of "Principles of Language Learning and Teaching".

This book provides a good introduction to current theories of language teaching, including critical evaluations of such popular theories as Krashen's Input Hypothesis. Brown couches each discussion in an overall view of the bevaviorist / cognitivist debate and refers to these larger theories regularly.

As a classroom textbook, this edition provides discussion questions and case studies for analysis.

The bibliography is extensive and up to date and the index points to all major topics covered.

I recommend this book to university students and to language teachers who want to refresh their understanding of the field.

Principles of Language Learning and Teaching
I found this book very helpful in my ESL classroom. Brown does an excellent job in chapter 3 comparing and contrasting first and second language acquisition. I believe this book is a must not only for ESL teachers, but all teachers. As our country becomes more diverse, it is important to know how to teach English to students of all ages. This would also be a good book for businesses who are struggling with employees with limited English. This book could also be useful for English teachers of all grades because it does go into great detail about how the first language is acquired. One important chapters for educators is chapter 10 on language testing. I would definately recommend this book and I will keep it for years to come as I have already referred back to it several times in my classroom.

Good introductory text to give students and practitioners a solid working knowledge of theory and research in SLA
Mr. "Berlitz pro-teacher['s]" review is a perfect example of why students who want to go into language teaching/education need to have at least a solid working knowledge of theory and research in second language acquisition. As I tell my graduate students, intuition and "experience" are certainly important things but effective teaching can only happen if instructors are able to make sound informed decisions that are based on what we know about how languages are acquired in the first place. As a university professor and researcher of SLA, I believe H. Douglas Brown's text is one of the good places to start to get this knowledge. The book is accessible, easy to read, and does a good job of bringing theory and classroom practice together. I show my students Mr. Berlitz pro-teacher's review at the beginning of my seminars and this review has been very effective in showing graduate students why a working knowledge of SLA theory and research is so important for language teachers. A teacher who has no understanding of how languages are acquired is like a doctor who practices medicine without any idea of how the human body works. My students have also pointed out that Mr. pro-teacher probably did not learn English with the best approach or method when you see all the spelling and grammatical mistakes in his review. See what all those drills and "repeatition" did for him?!!!

Addendum of Oct 28, 2005 - My students noticed that Mr. Pro Teacher has now corrected his spelling of "repeatition."