This paper reports on a study of 61 students and alumni of graduate programmes that specialise in training English language teachers. The goal was to examine the views of these students and alumni regarding the importance and/or relevance of linguistic theory for their pedagogical practice and to determine whether differences in perceptions were dependent upon varying years of teaching experience. Both rating data and responses to open-ended questions were collected. Results indicate that respondents across groups held positive views regarding the role of linguistic theory for their development as teachers, and they expressed interest in more direct linkages between theory and practice in their academic programmes. We discovered, however, that a U-shaped response pattern emerged: the most novice and most experienced teachers were more optimistic about the value of theory than those whose years of teaching experience fell somewhere between these two groups. Possible reasons for this developmental pattern are considered. The paper concludes that responses of these students and alumni provide important evidence that the primary rationale for including theoretical elements in language teacher education programmes should be to enhance the language awareness and professional development of teachers, not for making direct applications between theory and classroom practice.
The Greater St. Louis “dialect island” poses interesting problems for dialect documentation, partly because Greater St. Louis is a transitional area where many overlapping linguistic influences have left their mark and because it is an area with new immigrant communities, racial divides, and an aging population. Using a sample from survey and interview data from 815 participants over a seven-year period, the authors examine lexical diversity in Greater St. Louis, comprising counties in both Missouri and Illinois. They discover that both age and place are robust indicators of lexical selection in Southern Illinois and St. Louis. Their findings provide a concurring rationale with phonologically based studies that supports the existence of a unique dialect island in Greater St. Louis.
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