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Second Language Learning Data Analysis

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The purpose of this workbook is to provide students with practice in analyzing second language data. For the student of second language learning, hands-on experience with actual data is essential in understanding the processes involved in learning a second language. Working through exemplars of the kinds of interlanguages that learners do and do not create brings about a clearer understanding of the principles underlying these interlanguages, as well as the universal principles of language learning (those that are independent of particular languages and interlanguages).



The goal in this workbook is to present data organized in such a way that by working through pedagogically presented data-sets, students are led to a discovery and understanding of theoretical and/or methodological issues. In addition, they acquire the ability to interpret data and to begin to draw conclusions from them. The authors intend that students should go from the data to a conclusion that includes a 3-part statement:
*what else you should want to know about these data;
*why this, specifically, and not something else; and
*how one can empirically research what you want to find out.
This sequence of questions forces students to constantly keep in mind the important question of falsification: What kind of data would it take to falsify the particular conclusions the students come to?

As with the earlier edition of this workbook (Sorace, Gass, & Selinker), two audiocassettes provide language samples for use in the exercises. These cassettes and the teacher's manual are offered free of charge on adoption of the workbook for classroom use; a three-part set (workbook/manual/tapes) is also available.

136 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1994

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About the author

Susan M. Gass

42 books1 follower
Susan Gass is University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages at Michigan State University. Her research is in Second Language Acquisition and includes the areas of Input and Interaction, Language Universals and Language Transfer.

More recently she has become interested in the area of attention and how it relates to acquisition. She has written/edited a number of books on second language acquisition and has taught and lectured in various parts of the world. She co-edits Second Language Acquisition Research with Alison Mackey - published by Routledge

Currently at MSU, she is the Director of the English Language Center, Co-Director of the Center for Language Education And Research, co-Director of the Center for Language Teaching Advancement and Director of the Second Language Studies Ph.D. Program. She recently served as President of the International Association of Applied Linguistics (2002-2008) and is Associate Editor of Studies in Second Language Acquisition.

She has been invited to give lectures in Europe (most recently, Greece and Germany) and in Asia (most recently, Japan, S. Korea, China).

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