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Advanced English Language Competence at the Intersection of Programme Design, Pedagogical Practice, and Teacher Research: An Introduction

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Developing Advanced English Language Competence

Part of the book series: English Language Education ((ELED,volume 22))

Abstract

With a growing societal interest in advanced second language (L2) learning and use due to the implications of globalisation, internationalisation, migration, and various other social, economic, and professional forces, the topic of advancedness has become an area of scholarly concern over the past decades. What kind of knowledge and skills do advanced language users have and how do they communicate? Is an instructed setting at university particularly conducive, perhaps even essential, to advanced-level language learning? What level of proficiency can university students realistically reach after several semesters of advanced-level language education? These are just a few of the questions that are of concern to researchers and practitioners in the fields of second language acquisition (SLA), language education, especially in English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL) contexts, and language teacher education. This volume offers a curricular and instructional perspective on the question of advancedness by providing a profile of advanced-level language development in a specific institutional context, namely the Department of English and American Studies at the University of Vienna, Austria. Experienced language teachers, teacher-researchers, and student tutors in the English Language Competence (ELC) programme, the language study component of all curricula offered at the department, reflect on this approach, which rests on the idea that the key actors collaborate at the intersection of (1) programme design, (2) pedagogical practice, and (3) teacher research (i.e., teacher-initiated research to improve practice).

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Change history

  • 01 January 2022

    The original version of the book was inadvertently published with an incorrect citation (“Catterall, 2010”) in Chapter 1, page 5. The incorrect citation has now been corrected to “Catterall & Ireland, 2010,” and on page 22, the entry in the references has been revised with “Catterall, S. J., & Ireland, C. J. (2010).”

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Berger, A. (2021). Advanced English Language Competence at the Intersection of Programme Design, Pedagogical Practice, and Teacher Research: An Introduction. In: Berger, A., Heaney, H., Resnik, P., Rieder-Bünemann, A., Savukova, G. (eds) Developing Advanced English Language Competence. English Language Education, vol 22. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79241-1_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79241-1_1

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