This is a good thread and I'm disappointed there aren't more people posting on it! Here is a quick summary of some of the books I've bought recently.
From Oxford University Press:
Conversational Interaction in Second Language Acquisition. - I quite enjoyed this as I like the Interactionist school in general. This is a recent (2007) collection of empirical studies edited by Alison Mackey. You will find lots of reference to Michael Long's Interaction Hypothesis and emphasis on recasts. As a teacher I found I started paying very close and analytical attention to any sort of feedback my students gave me in the classroom as a result. This book took a while to get through but I thought it was worth it.
Very Empirical!
Task-based Language Learning and Teaching. This is a classic by Rod Ellis and really helped me put Tasks into perspective. I now have the ability to conceptualize why certain activities elicit greater student involvement and am much more efficient at designing tasks. This book is really good and a must read for teachers! This book is more theoretical than practical; I understand that Jane Willis has recently published a OUP title called
Doing Task-based Teaching (or something similar) which is more practical and which I intend to buy very soon.
Controversies in Applied Linquistics. Edited by Barbara Seidlhofer, this is also a fascinating book which documents exchanges (sometimes rather heated) between Applied Linguists. This book was excellent! It covers many issues: my favourites included Robert Phillipson's merciless review of a David Crystal book
, Pierce's excellent article on Postmodern social identity and Podromou's criticism of Corpus driven teaching represented by authors Carter and McCarthy.
Onto the
Cambridge Language Teaching Library:
As a general aside, I do not enjoy this series as much as OUP Applied Linguistics.
The recent titles on motivation I bought were rather "disappointing"
Both titles involved Zoltan Dornyei. As I understand it, he is almost ready to release a title in the OUP Applied Linguistics series on Learner Psychology, which I hope is better. Anyway, the 2 titles I picked up were:
Motivational Strategies in the Language Classroom. Quite frankly, this was not worth the money I spent. Nothing of any note to really say here.
Group Dynamics in the Language Classroom. This was the better of the two, and was co-authored with Tim Murphey, that crazy juggling teacher in Japan. This was interesting enough to read, but I'm not sure it led to any change in my teaching practice. Ditto for the above mentioned title.
Ok, I also picked up I.S.P. Nation's
Teaching Vocabulary - Strategies and Techniques (Heinle Cengage). This is a best practices book and is not bound to any particular methodology. Definitely practical, but I think I will have to re-read it several times and make a conscious effort to adapt some of the techniques.
Finally,
Learner Autonomy in the Foreign Language Classroom - Teacher, Learner, Curriculum and Assessment, published by Authentik and edited by David Little, Jennifer Ridley and Ema Ushioda. I found this book to be very well written and motivating. It really emphasizes the importance of Learner Autonomy (no surprise!) and adopts what the authors term a "constructivist" approach, the idea being that learners must construct their own understanding. This may sound like a truism but I found it to be quite poignant. I really enjoyed this book and recommend it.