The Language Teaching Matrix

Cambridge Language Teaching Library

by Jack C. Richards

Richards explains how effective language teaching involves a network of interactions between curriculum, methodology, teachers, learners, instructional materials. Each chapter discusses and examines the theoretical and practical dimensions of a central issue in language teaching. Topics covered include the nature of effective teaching, self-monitoring in teacher development, language and content, and teaching listening, speaking, reading and writing. Richards presents key issues in an accessible and highly readable style, and shows how teachers and teachers-in-training can be involved in the investigation of classroom teaching and learning. The emphasis is not on prescriptions but rather on developing effective teaching through understanding the various factors that interact in second language learning and in the second language classroom.

197 pages, Hardcover

First published February 23, 1990

About the author

Jack Croft Richards is an applied linguist from New Zealand, specializing in second and foreign language education, teacher training, and materials design. He has written numerous articles and books. Most of his books and articles are in the field of second language teaching and have been translated into many different languages. He was appointed full professor in the Department of English as a Second Language at the University of Hawaii in 1981.