Exploring Psychology in Language Learning and Teaching

Oxford Handbooks for Language Teachers

by Marion Williams, Sarah Mercer, Stephen Ryan

This book explores key areas of educational and social psychology and considers their relevance to language learning and teaching, using activities and questions for reflection. The topics discussed in the book include:

• learners’ and teachers’ beliefs about how a language should be learned and taught
• learning and working in groups
• relationships with others
• the role of the self in teaching and learning
• motivation to start and persist with tasks
• the role of emotions in learning.

The authors provide useful insights for the understanding of language learning and discuss the important implications for language teaching pedagogy.

Extra resources are available on the website:
www.oup.com/elt/teacher/exploringpsyc...

Marion Williams was formerly Reader in Applied Linguistics at the University of Exeter and is a past president of IATEFL.
Sarah Mercer is Professor of Foreign Language Teaching at the University of Graz, Austria.
Stephen Ryan is Professor in the School of Economics at Senshu University, Tokyo.

Genres: Teaching

169 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 28, 2016

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Reviews

[Sandy Millin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This actually only took me about a week to read - I had a long break in the middle to read some fiction! It's a very accessible account of the impact of psychology on language learning and teaching. Concepts are explained clearly, and I've already copied a couple of pages for some of my colleagues to read. I can see that I'll be referring to this book regularly.

[Elisabetta · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to read this book to prepare for an exam. At times the language could have been more concise and straigforward and I would have preferred focusing a little longer on the main theories rather than reading lots and lots of different bits and pieces.

The topics were not new to me and, yes, overall, the book does a great job at explaining how:

complex and dynamic
personal
situational - contextual
emotional
interrelated
interpersonal
intrapersonal
cognitive
metacognitive
unique

the learning process is.

My fav chapter was on the history of psychological approaches and their influence on language learning and teaching. I'm not sure though about how clear it would be to someone who never heard of behaviorism and cognitivism.