As you might imagine from its title, this book is a handbook for practising teachers and students who intend working in the field of language teaching. The author, Rolf Kreyer, is a professor of modern English linguistics and works at the University of Marburg in Germany.
Unlike guides on practical teaching techniques, this book aims to provide its readers with a thorough grounding in modern linguistics and show them how the theoretical foundation can be used effectively to teach a foreign language to learners in a classroom. (Hence its subtitle, 'Discovering the value of linguistics for foreign language teaching'.)
It's quite an achievement to compress the key aspects of linguistics into 300 pages, but Prof. Kreyer has done a good job of it in my opinion. On top of that, he has included various examples, diagrams and tables to help readers grasp the concepts better and has incorporated practical exercises in each chapter as well.
Tips for further reading are provided at the end of each chapter for those who want to find out more about a subject he discusses. All the works he refers to are listed in the bibliography at the end of the book, followed by a glossary of technical terms and an index with page references.
This is a well-designed book that is written in a readily accessible style, making it a good read for any language teacher, regardless of what language they choose to focus on. Some sections are easier to follow than others, i.e. they are relatively technical, but the contents are always outlined clearly and the short exercises make you think about the topics and apply what you have learnt.
Click on this link to view the table of contents online.
Publisher/year: narr/francke/attempto, 2023
ISBN: 978-3-8233-8611-7 (printed version), 978-3-8233-9611-8 (ePDF)
Obtainable directly from the publisher or through your local bookshop.
Carl
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