Paul J. Angelis

TEACHING ENGLISH TO THE WORLD: HISTORY, CURRICULUM AND PRACTICE, George Braine (Ed.)

TEACHING ENGLISH TO THE WORLD: HISTORY, CURRICULUM AND PRACTICE. George Braine (Ed.) . Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2005. Pp. xx + 169.

Applied Linguistics: Realities and Projections Re the Teaching Profession

22.50 paper. This volume, edited by Braine, has some links to a volume he edited 6 years earlier (Braine, 1999). The major purpose of the earlier work was to provide personal narratives of a number of nonnative English language teachers from various world settings. This volume relies on nonnative teachers to present information on the history of English language teaching and the most prominent curricula for this teaching in their respective countries, followed by their autobiographies. The issue of nonnative teachers of English has gained increasing prominence in recent years, as witnessed by the growing number of conference colloquia, formation of new interest sections within professional associations, and publications devoted to this topic. This volume contributes to that topic and movement but goes even further by adding information on what English language teaching has meant in key countries around the world.

Some Considerations for ESL Program Evaluation

The motivation for attempting a retrospective and projective view of applied linguistics with respect to language proficiency and the teaching profession, has, for me, been at least twofold. On the one hand, there is a professional perspective. By that I mean the actual work conducted by applied linguistics. What major and minor themes have been the focal points of research and general inquiry? What trends seem to have been developing in the directions for such work? At the same time, there is an organizational basis for such review. Here I refer to the formal establishment of associations and organizations. Why and how have applied linguists joined together in professional organizations? What prospects appear for the maintenance and growth of such organizations? The first of these issues touches on the seemingly age-old question of the nature and scope of applied linguistics. Admittedly, retrospection in this regard has often taken the form of introspection. Some would contend that constant attention to what activities are and can or should be encompassed within a field labelled “applied linguistics” detracts from participation in and dissemination of information on the work to be done. Such a commentary should not be dismissed lightly. There is value, nonetheless, in assessing the activities within applied linguistics because of the potential support that such reviews provide to the field, its participants, and its organizations. It can only provide needed recognition for work already accomplished and, by highlighting such activities, encourage more professionals to participate in a wider range of potential projects with a language base.

Derivational Complexity and Item Difficulty in a Sentence Repetition Task.

There is a robust tradition of program evaluation in the field of testing and measurement, but within the TESOL community, pro gram evaluation has only recently begun to be considered as a vital component. To identify some of the major concepts involved, we provide an overview of the better known approaches in program evaluation and, where applicable, focus attention on related measurement issues. We attempt to relate the following to ESL pro grams: formative and summative evaluation, criterion-, growth-, and norm-referenced evaluation, and related psychometric considera tions.