Conversation Strategies and Communicative Competence by Christian Jones
(Positive Pedagogical Praxis Series) 

The book begins by introducing the arguments for teaching conversation strategies as a means of developing communicative competence. Following this, the four subsequent chapters each describe a different study, each examining the teaching of conversation strategies in a different way: a learner corpus investigation of  strategies used by both leaners and users of English as lingua franca, a materials evaluation study based on the responses of teachers in a variety of contexts, an experimental study in an ESL context, comparing the effects of teaching conversation strategies to a control group receiving no instruction and  finally a qualitative diary and interview study in an EFL context. Finally, the concluding chapter discusses the implications of these studies for teachers and researchers.

About the author

Christian Jones has been involved in English language teaching for over twenty five years and has worked in China, Japan, Thailand and the UK. During this time, he taught general English, business English, exam classes, classes for young learners and undertook materials/course development and teacher training. He holds the Cambridge CTEFLA and DTEFLA qualifications alongside an MA and PhD from the University of Nottingham. Chris' main research interests are related to spoken language and include work on spoken corpora, lexis and lexico-grammar, classroom applications of corpus data and instructed second language acquisition in general. He is currently academic lead for postgraduate taught programmes in the School of the Arts.

Endorsements
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"While humbly recognising the limitations of his research studies, Christian Jones draws useful implications to inform the development of materials and inspires a number of avenues for fruitful future research into the teaching of conversation strategies. We congratulate him on this volume and wish him and anyone connected with conversation strategy teaching huge success. The manifestations of their success will, no doubt, speak for themselves" (Foreword)
Jeanne McCarten and Michael McCarthy

"For some time now, research into second language conversational competence has focused on the linguistic features of spoken language, sometimes at the expense of a concern for what successful speakers actually do. This eminently readable, evidence-based book restores the balance, and re-instates the role of conversational strategies where they rightfully belong: at the forefront of any pedagogy aimed at developing the ability to manage and sustain informal talk in a second language."
Scott Thornbury, Associate Professor, The New School, New York

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Contents

• Acknowledgements
• Foreword by Jeanne McCarten and Michael McCarthy
• Pre-amble
• Introduction
• What are conversation strategies and why teach them? *
• Study 1: Corpus analysis
• Study 2: Materials evaluation
• Study 3: Mixed-methods study in an ESL context
• Study 4. Action research study in an EFL context
• Conclusion

Publication details

Publication date: 2021
Series: Positive Pedagogical Praxis