Abello-Contesse, Christián, Rubén Chacón-Beltrán, M. Dolores López-Jiménez, and M. Mar Torreblanca-López, eds, Age in L2 Acquisition and Teaching, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Oxford, Wien, 2006
ISBN 3-03910-668-6 / US-ISBN 0-8204-7174-7 pb.
Introduction
This book comprises eleven contributions dealing with various aspects of age and the age factor in the acquisition and teaching of second languages, particularly English and Spanish. The articles chosen for this monograph have been written by expert researchers in the field from Spain, Great Britain and the USA. The advances put forward in this book will certainly be of interest to researchers, scholars, and graduate students working on this topical issue in the fields of bilingualism, multilingualism, and second language teaching and learning. The book is divided into three parts. Part one deals with theoretical issues related to age and their pedagogical implications. Part two centers on age and L2 learning in school and family settings. Part three focuses on age and the relationship between aptitude and child/adult L2 learning.
Contents
Christián Abello-Contesse/Rubén Chacón-Beltrán/M. Dolores López-Jiménez/M. Mar Torreblanca-López: Introduction and overview
Thomas Scovel: Age, acquisition, and accent
Robert DeKeyser: A critique of recent arguments against the critical period hypothesis
Paul Michael Chandler: Critical period or language learning difficulties: Are there two types of adult foreign language learners?
Carmen Muñoz: The BAF Project: Research on the effects of age on foreign language acquisition
Christián Abello-Contesse: Does interaction help or hinder oral L2 development in early English immersion?
Francisco Gallardo del Puerto/María Luisa García Lecumberri: Age effects on single phoneme perception for learners of English as a foreign language
Carmen Pérez-Vidal: Family multilingualism and multilingual education
Gloria Ruiz-González: Promoting the productive use of the weak language in family bilingualism
James Milton/Thomaï Alexiou: Language aptitude development in young learners
Pedro Guijarro-Fuentes/Kimberly Geeslin: Interpretation of Spanish copula choice by Portuguese near-native speakers.
The Editors
Christián Abello-Contesse is Associate Professor at the University of Seville, Spain, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in foreign language teaching methodology, second language acquisition, and bilingualism.
Rubén Chacón-Beltrán is Associate Professor at the UNED (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia), Madrid, Spain, where he teaches undergraduate courses in English as a foreign language and English sociolinguistics, and a graduate course in vocabulary teaching and learning.
M. Dolores López-Jiménez is a doctoral student at the University of Seville, Spain. Her dissertation deals with vocabulary and textbooks for the teaching of English and Spanish as second languages.
M. Mar Torreblanca-López is Associate Professor at the University of Seville, Spain, where she teaches undergraduate courses in English as a foreign language and discourse analysis and graduate courses in pragmatics and discourse analysis.