Download or read book Understanding the Language Classroom written by S. Gieve and published by Springer. This book was released on 2005-11-30 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The starting point for this collection is a chapter by Dick Allwright on the language learning and teaching classroom experience entitled Six Promising Directions in Applied Linguistics. The other distinguished contributors respond to this discussion with their own interpretations and from their own experience. The collection problematizes prescription, efficiency, and technical solutions as orientations to classroom language learning. Complexity and idiosyncrasy, on the other hand, are recognized as central concepts in a move towards centralizing teachers' and learners' own understanding of 'classroom life', in the contexts of language learning, adult literacy education and language teacher education.