Teaching and Researching

Speaking is a dynamic, interpersonal process and one that strongly influences how we are perceived by others in a range of formal and everyday contexts. Despite this, speaking is often researched and taught as if it is simply writing delivered in a different mode. In Teaching and Researching Speaking, Rebecca Hughes 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.

This thoroughly revised and updated second edition looks to the future of the field, offering:

• A new chapter on assessment, discussing ‘high stakes’ oral language testing contexts such as immigration
• New material considering access to spoken data via the worldwide web and new technologies that allow neurolinguistic insights formerly hidden from view
• Summaries and case studies to help the reader understand how to approach researching speaking and encourages practitioners to question the models of speaking that they are using in their classrooms.

Reviewing materials and assessment practices in the light of current knowledge about spoken language, and highlighting areas for new work and collaboration between researchers and practitioners, this book will be a valuable resource for anyone involved in language teaching.

About the Author

Rebecca Hughes is Chair of Applied Linguistics and Head of the Centre for English Language Education at the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom. She is the author of several publications including English in Speech and Writing (1996), and Spoken English, TESOL and Applied Linguistics: Challenges for Theory and Practice (ed.) (2006).