Second Language Instructors and CALL: A Multidisciplinary Research Framework

The field of Second Language Acquisition has long since reached consensus that the most effective way to teach a foreign language is through “Communicative Methods” that immerse students in the language as soon and as fully as possible, requiring them to hear and speak—not translate—the new language. Are there lessons from this we can learn for teaching classical languages such as Greek and Hebrew? Below is an edited transcript of a panel sponsored by the National Association of Professors of Hebrew at the 2017 conference of the Society of Biblical Literature. The publication of Paul Overland’s textbook, Learning Biblical Hebrew Interactively (2016), provided the occasion for a group of Hebrew language instructors to reflect together on the challenges and possibilities of Second Language Acquisition communicative methods for teaching Biblical Hebrew.

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Darwin’s bureaucrat

Politics and the Life Sciences ◽

10.1017/pls.2019.17 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 38 (2) ◽

pp. 168-179

Author(s):

Kevin B. Smith ◽

Jayme L. N. Renfro

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Rational Choice ◽

Bounded Rationality ◽

Human Behavior ◽

Institutional Arrangements ◽

Multidisciplinary Research ◽

Research Framework ◽

Control Decision ◽

Bureaucratic Behavior ◽

Predictive Theory

AbstractThe study of bureaucratic behavior—focusing on control, decision-making, and institutional arrangements—has historically leaned heavily on theories of rational choice and bounded rationality. Notably absent from this research, however, is attention to the growing literature on biological and especially evolutionary human behavior. This article addresses this gap by closely examining the extant economic and psychological frameworks—which we refer to as “Adam Smith’s bureaucrat” and “Herbert Simon’s bureaucrat”—for their shortcomings in terms of explanatory and predictive theory, and by positing a different framework, which we call “Charles Darwin’s bureaucrat.” This model incorporates new insights from an expanding multidisciplinary research framework and has the potential to address some of the long-noted weaknesses of classic theories of bureaucratic behavior.

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Analyzing Learner Language to Better Understand Errors: A Case Study with Turkish Learners of English

International Journal of English Language Teaching ◽

10.5430/ijelt.v5n1p9 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 9

Author(s):

Heather M. Austin

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Second Language Acquisition ◽

Language Acquisition ◽

Continuing Education ◽

Learning Opportunities ◽

Acquisition Process ◽

Language Instructors ◽

Student Errors ◽

Learner Language

Analyzing the errors of students’ learner language (interlanguage) can help language instructors to not only betterunderstand why the errors may be occurring, but also provide them with insight on how to better guide learners intheir L2 learning. In this paper, the learner language of two Turkish students of English was analyzed regarding thethird person singular –s inflection and interaction strategies. The author met with each student three times and speechdata was collected during these meetings. An error and interlanguage analysis was then conducted. Reflecting onthese types of analyses can be a very enlightening process in a teacher’s continuing education. Various implicationsarise, such as more objectivity in approaching student errors, creating better learning opportunities in the classroom,as well as having a better indication of where students are at in their own second language acquisition process.

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