Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc.
(TESOL)
Review
Reviewed Work(s): Interaction in the Language Curriculum: Awareness, Autonomy and
Authenticity by Leo van Lier
Review by: Judy Winn-Bell Olsen
Source: TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Summer, 1997), pp. 371-372
Published by: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL)
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Accessed: 31-10-2016 07:45 UTC
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REVIEWS
The TESOL Quarterly welcomes evaluative reviews of publications relevant to TESOL
professionals. In addition to textbooks and reference materials, these include
computer and video software, testing instruments, and other forms of nonprint
materials.
Edited by H. DOUGLAS BROWN
San Francisco State University
Interaction in the Language Curriculum:
Awareness, Autonomy and Authenticity.
Leo van Lier. New York: Longman, 1996. Pp. xi + 248.
* Van Lier's current articulation of his evolving theory of practice in
language education incorporates theories of learning, pedagogical inter-
action, and instruction, accounting for not only what can and shoul
happen in the classroom but why it should happen. Although he use
familiar terminology, it is often with different meanings (as he warns in
his preface).
Chapters 1, 2, and 3 give a detailed overview of his ideas: Van Lier sees
curriculum as a dynamic entity. He writes of curriculum as interactionin the sense that the goals of the class, the means for reaching them, and
their achievement evolve through pedagogical interaction or instructional conversation (teacher-student and student-student) and through
internal processing by students and teachers outside of class. Van Lier
suggests that the real learning, or integration of new material, happens
between lessons, on the participants' own internal time.
The basis for making principled choices in teaching, says van Lier,
should come not only from a well-grounded knowledge base of the field
(which he terms epistemology) but also from a well-understood set of
ethical issues, or values (axiology). From the combination of the knowledge and values come three foundational principles to form the basis of
the language curriculum proposed by van Lier: awareness, autonomy,
and authenticity. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 provide detailed expositions on
what he means by these terms.
Chapters 7, 8, and 9 develop van Lier's views of teachers and students
as partners in developing their shared knowledge and themselves so that
students become more knowledgeable and readily participative and so
that teachers, through classroom observation and outside reflection on
TESOL QUARTERLY Vol. 31, No. 2, Summer 1997
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371
the
the classroom
classroomexperience,
experience,become
become
more
more
insightful
insightful
in furthering
in furthering
the the
process.
Van Lier's book is a tightly integrated weaving of theory, practice, and
research drawn from a wealth of sources. Paolo Freire, Lev Vygotsky,
John Dewey, and Jerome Bruner are recognizable influences here and
are mentioned throughout the text as part of a constellation of citations-some probably familiar, others perhaps not-from psychology
education, linguistics, and philosophy, among them Mikhail Bakhtin,
Pierre Bourdieu, Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, Norman Fairclough,
Charles Sanders Pierce, Lawrence Stenhouse, and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
One frequent reference is Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, whose concept of
flow figures prominently in van Lier's conceptualization of optimal
learning.
Though there are occasional dense thickets of reference, for the most
part the book is quite readable, but slowly-this is not skimmable prose.
But it is an especially appealing work because of what van Lier brings of
himself to it. His examples of personal experiences in the language
classroom ring true and enliven the text, as do his down-to-earth asides
and occasional memorable metaphors (see especially his syllabus a
triptik, p. 20).
This book deserves a place on the bookshelf of every person seriously
interested in conceptualizing what we can and should do as language
teachers and why. It is a masterly integration of many, many strands of
the educational enterprise into a model that respects the various threads
of the tapestry while weaving them together.
Not a book for beginners, it is useful for graduate students and
professionals who want to keep current with the literature and move
beyond the usual TESOL-related references. Each time I dive into it, I
find it a richly rewarding read.
JUDY WINN-BELL OLSEN
City College of San Francisco
Understanding Second Language Learning Dificulties.
Madeline E. Ehrman. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996. Pp. xvii + 346.
* Although much has been written on facilitating the process of second
language acquisition (SLA), most often the focus is on the average or
typical learner. In contrast, Ehrman's book provides insights on and
techniques for understanding language learners who struggle. Based on
her belief that many difficulties arise from conflicts between students'
learning styles and teaching methods, Ehrman offers suggestions for
372
TESOL QUARTERLY
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