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Language Teaching Theory & Methods
Language: History & General Works
Dongjing Han
Manuel Barberá López
Vocabulary Knowledge and Listening Performance in English Language Learning
Making the Best of a Bad Job
Case Studies in China
Representations of Disability, Gender and Old Age in the Novels of Samuel Beckett
New York, 2020. XXII, 154 pp., 5 b/w ill., 60 tables.
New York, 2021. XIV, 198 pp.
hb. • ISBN 978-1-4331-6368-5 CHF 93.– / €D 80.95 / €A 82.50 / € 75.– / £ 60.– / US-$ 89.95 eBook (SUL) • ISBN 978-1-4331-7055-3 CHF 93.– / €D 89.95 / €A 90.– / € 75.– / £ 60.– / US-$ 89.95
The primary aim of this book is to enhance English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ listening proficiency and provide pedagogical implications for vocabulary and listening teaching practice. This book gives particular attention to mastery of aural vocabulary knowledge to enhancement of listening performance in Chinese context. It provides a comprehensive picture of the role of vocabulary acquisition approaches and strategy practice in listening performance. This book evaluates the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and listening comprehension in English as a foreign language (EFL), which has not been sufficiently investigated empirically. In particular, it has an added focus on the use of aural vocabulary knowledge tests in detecting the role of vocabulary knowledge in listening comprehension. It highlights the role of vocabulary knowledge in determining listening success. Specifically, it draws scholars’ attention to the contributions of aural vocabulary knowledge to listening comprehension. The study also confirms the previous hypotheses of higher correlations between aural vocabulary size knowledge and listening comprehension. Pedagogically, it confirms the significance and necessity of improving both aural and written forms of vocabulary knowledge and focusing on strategy-embedded listening activities in EFL listening education. In this book, each chapter is dedicated to a specific theme in EFL learning and acquisition, providing a China case study dedicated to further development of EFL education.
Masculinity Studies. Literary and Cultural Representations. Vol. 11 hb. • ISBN 978-1-4331-8729-2 CHF 98.– / €D 84.95 / €A 87.10 / € 79.20 / £ 64.– / US-$ 94.95 eBook (SUL) • ISBN 978-1-4331-8730-8 CHF 98.– / €D 84.95 / €A 87.10 / € 79.20 / £ 64.– / US-$ 94.95
This book explores the representations of disability, gender and old age in the novels of Samuel Beckett. His works go against the foundations of Western thought, which has been traditionally focused on success, clarity, learning and ability, while Beckett chose to focus on failure, confusion, decay and impotence. This study purports to show the central importance of the three categories chosen for the general understanding of the writer’s work. It constitutes an attempt to provide a gendered interpretation of Beckett’s protagonists, who are increasingly unable to reason, talk or move properly, extremely old and do not fit hegemonic models of masculinity. Beckett, who denies his own ability as an author to understand and explain a chaotic world, chooses these disabled, old men as the ultimate representatives of the human condition and the best models to transmit his worldview. This is a book combining different perspectives and getting to conclusions regarding power structures which are particularly interesting for researchers or students taking courses on the dialectics of alterity, masculinities studies or new readings of Samuel Beckett’s works. The author’s research is based on the main arguments of feminist thought, masculinities studies, disability studies, ageing studies and recent work on Beckett. The ultimate goal of such interdisciplinary approach is to show how different systems of oppression work in similar ways and to draw the political implications of Beckett’s literary choices, in terms of visibility and solidarity.
