Reviews
Spoken Discourse. Rodney Jones. London, England:
Bloomsbury, 2016. vi + 219 pp.
Reviewed byThomas Amundrud
Nara University of Education

For current and future language teachers, a working knowledge of the studyof spoken discourse is essential. As with most academic fields, though, therange of approaches available can seem dizzying to those for whom discourse is not a primary research area. In Spoken Discourse, Jones demystifies the study of how we use speech in society and expands the traditional
definition of speech beyond the notion of two or more speakers talking faceto-face to include both material, technological mediations such as YouTube
videos as well as the meaning-making, semiotic technologies we use to create, affirm, and challenge identities. In doing so, Jones provides a workable
and coherent framework that enables new researchers in spoken discourse,
as well as students and teachers in this field, to access and analyze speech
and its material effects in the world. To do this, Jones develops what he calls“an analytical approach that focuses on the relationship between spoken
discourse and the concrete actions [emphasis in original] we take with it”(p. 183). Jones approaches the study of spoken discourse from the triadic,
social semiotic perspective he has developed elsewhere (e.g., Jones, 2012).
Accordingly, in this volume, he simultaneously focuses on language above
the clause (forming cohesive texts), language in action (performing concretesocial goals), and language as a means of creating social worlds mediated byideology.
In Chapter 1, Jones introduces the study of spoken discourse via a journey
through detailed transcripts of a phone conversation in which a young man
in the U.S. military comes out as gay to his father. To show how the studyof spoken discourse is much more complex than merely studying face-toJALT Journal, Vol. 39, No. 2, November 2017

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face or traditionally mediated interactions like the telephone conversations
studied at length in early conversation analysis, Jones informs us that thisphone conversation was included as a part of the young man’s YouTube
video channel in which he simultaneously documented and searched forsupport for his journey coming out as a gay member of the military whilethe “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was still in place. In Chapter 2, Jones surveys
various disciplines that have contributed to the study of spoken discourse,
focusing particularly on the contributions of conversation analysis, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics. Chapter 3 contains an examination of the tools,
both technological and semiotic, through which we communicate and how
the affordances of these tools of talk develop. Jones argues and shows thatthese technologies should not be seen as breaks from face-to-face interaction as well as that face-to-face conversation should not be seen as pureor unmediated (p. 56). In Chapter 4, Jones uses the perspectives of speech
act theory and conversation analysis to look at mediated action—how talkinteracts with action and serves to facilitate or impede it. Chapter 5 is an
exploration of interaction: (a) how people manage the mechanics of talk,such as opening or closing conversations and taking turns, (b) how people
in interactions become “ratified participants,” recognized as having a rightto participate in that interaction, and (c) how different types of ratified or
nonratified participation are enacted with both face-to-face and digital technological mediation. In Chapter 6, Jones looks at identities and how they areboth “brought along” to interactions as conventionalized amalgams of talkand behavior and “brought about” through the ways people negotiate theirrelationships in specific circumstances. Chapter 7 contains a discussion of
how the groups and communities we belong to are imagined and how people use them as semiotic resources to create meaning in their interactions.
Jones closes the book in Chapter 8 by exploring his concept of “answerability,” or how our responses to the interactions we are involved in not only
involve the immediate interactions themselves but also the larger “big C”
conversations (Gee, 2011) in which they occur, along with the positive andnegative consequences of how the continuing development of communication technologies affect our answerability to one another.
A strength of this book for those new to the study of spoken discourse, as
well as for students in advanced undergraduate or graduate courses, is theclarity of Jones’s prose. Jones clearly and repeatedly defines terms such astechnologization (p. 72), which describes how both physical tools like voicerecorders as well as semiotic tools like speech genres develop collections ofusages, acquire specific social values, and become enmeshed in larger “bigBook Reviews

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D” Discourses (Gee, 2011) that both engage and exclude specific kinds ofpeople. Terms such as this, along with everyday vernacular terms like talkand discourse, which frequently and confusingly acquire new or varied meanings within the social sciences, are clearly defined and explained. Moreover,
Jones takes care to define key conceptual frameworks that are related toeach other, such as speech communities and communities of practice in
Chapter 7, showing how they are distinct. For students and new researchers trying to determine the research tools to use for a specific project, such
explanations will save considerable time.
There is little to criticize in this text aside from one single editoral oversight that might confuse readers unfamiliar with this field. On page 149,
in describing the differences between involvement and independence
strategies by which speakers communicate social closeness and distance,
Jones states that “people who are more powerful are freer to use involvement strategies to those who are less powerful, but the less powerful areusually obliged to use involvement strategies to the more powerful.” Basedupon Jones (2012) and the study of politeness strategies generally, the final
clause should state that the less powerful are obliged to use independence
strategies. Because of the confusion and misguidance this could provide, it
is hoped that this error will be corrected in subsequent editions.
Despite this minor problem, Spoken Discourse is a clear, concise, and timely introduction to how we can analyze speech in its many forms. Readers
seeking to learn about the study of spoken discourse and teachers leading
courses in this study would be advised to consider this text as a useful guide.

References

Gee, J. P. (2011). An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method (3rd ed.).
New York, NY: Routledge.
Jones, R. H. (2012). Discourse analysis: A resource book for students. New York, NY:
Routledge.

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Academic Writing Step by Step: A Research-Based Approach.
Christopher N. Candlin, Peter Crompton, and Basil Hatim.
Sheffield, England: Equinox, 2016. xiii + 207 pp.
Reviewed byRobert Andrews
Kyoto Sangyo University

Whether in the writer’s first or second language, academic writing is widely
regarded as a difficult skill to master. As a result, numerous approaches towriting instruction have arisen along with debates over their effectiveness.
Traditional arguments between product and process approaches have beenrefined to include considerations of genre as well as the specialized fieldof English for academic purposes (EAP). In the preface for Academic Writing Step by Step: A Research-Based Approach, the series editor promises a
new methodology informed by genre theory, discourse analysis, and systemic functional linguistics. The authors further explain that this resource
is designed as a workbook on research paper writing for undergraduate
and graduate students who are speakers of English as a second or foreign
language. Students follow this workbook by analyzing and emulating popularized research articles, with example texts taken from sources such as The
Guardian, The Economist, and even blogs.
The body of this workbook contains 10 units (A to J). In Units A to F, an
example text is used to showcase key components of research writing. These
units broadly follow the same format and sequence with context, vocabulary, featured text, commentary, and guided activities on grammar and text
organization and are of similar length—between 16 and 18 pages. In UnitG, persuasive strategies for writing with logic, credibility, and feeling are introduced as well as ways to construct an argument. Unit H includes explanations of how to credit other people’s research, including, for example, ways
to cite references in accordance with APA rules. The authors then invite us“inside the writer’s head” according to the titles of the final two units (I andJ), highlighting such features as to-do lists and editing.
The focus of Unit A is the macrostructure of the book’s target genre: thepopularized research article. The model texts are authentic texts (as opposed
to ones created solely for pedagogic purposes) taken from mainstream publications and blogs that are chosen for their accessibility to nonspecialists.
They also feature concepts that the authors consider to be the core con-Book Reviews

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stituents of all research writing—given, new, data, and conclusion. Given andnew are familiar concepts in discourse analysis (see, e.g., McCarthy, 1991),
defined respectively in Academic Writing Step by Step as “commonly held
but questionable assertions” and “presentation of research supporting thenew proposal” (p. 1) with the contrast between the two being an essential
element of all research writing (p. 10).
In Unit B, the authors outline how this contrast is relevant to the title,
lead summary, and overview of a research article and how the overview
provides a map of the rest of the article. Unit C is about developing the article body and conclusion by composing a problem-solution structure that
demonstrates the relationship between the given and the new. Further text
features are introduced such as a research question and a concise answer tothat question in the form of a thesis statement. The authors then build on
the previous unit by demonstrating in Unit D how to write expository summaries, either as short “in-text” or longer “stand alone” pieces. They takestudents through the process of quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing
the work of others and suggest two criteria for choosing to use a quotation
instead of paraphrasing information. These criteria are that the language
should be vivid (i.e., nonscientific) and that the speaker should be authoritative, such as the researcher who conducted the research. Title and research
institution should be included as well to substantiate their authority.
In the next unit, the authors explain “how writers string together several
summaries” (p. 70) to form an explanatory synthesis. The model text inUnit E is a blog post in which each paragraph in the body of the article is asummary of a piece of research on obesity. The article body is preceded byan introduction to the topic and followed by a conclusion that summarizes
the opinions of the author on the cited articles. The reader is also shown
the writer’s role in forming the explanatory synthesis, which includes how
to use transition words such as for example, moreover, and however. The
authors use Unit F to describe in some depth how to build an argument or
critique, which is a claim followed by an evaluation of that claim.
Much of Units A to F cover ground similar to that of Behrens and Rosen(2010) but in a way that is more suitable for L2 learners. These parallels
continue in Unit G with the introduction of the Aristotelian concepts oflogos, ethos, and pathos—or appeals to rationality, credibility, and emotion—which are used to describe persuasive style. Also familiar are theunit’s critical thinking sections, including activities on how to identify andcorrect logical fallacies such as ad hominem, question-begging, and non
sequiturs. In Unit H, the authors equip the reader with valuable advice on

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how to avoid plagiarism with a comprehensive account of how to provide
in-text and end-text citations. Activities include composing citations using
photographic reproductions of papers from journals or online materials.
The final two units offer practical advice on the writing process, such as
the prewriting to-do list in Unit I, with commentary on how to improve a
piece over multiple drafts. Unit J culminates in a completed paper on animal
research. This essay presumably serves as a model for student readers, although it disappointingly uses logical fallacies such as arguments from tradition and popularity to counter arguments against speciesism. The unit also
somewhat undermines the authors’ claim that popularized science articles,
like those cited in the preceding units, serve as useful models for writers ofundergraduate research papers or a graduate thesis (p. xii). The genre hasreceived criticism for distorting scientific findings for the purposes of sensationalism (Goldacre, 2008). Although popular science articles may containtextual features that are similar to academic writing, some of the examples
in the book are less convincing as models of style to be emulated. A particularly egregious example is the final sentence in the blog post on obesity: “It’slike taking candy from a baby, or, um, GIVING [emphasis in original] candy
to a baby” (p. 72). Teachers who wish to advise their students on systematic
academic writing style may want to refer to Kluge and Taylor (2007).
However, the strength of this volume is the useful array of discourse
awareness activities that accompany the target texts such as multiple-choicequestions, explicit text commentary, and writing practice assignments.
Grammar targets have also been well chosen for presenting research. The
past and present perfect allow the contrast between the given and new tobe emphasized, as in this example: “Dolphins have long been recognized asamong the most intelligent of animals, but many researchers had placed
them below chimps” (p. 27). This allows the given to be presented before
the new—which is research showing dolphins may be as intelligent as
3-year old humans. Other grammar targets presented in these units that
befit an academic style of writing include the passive voice, gerunds, andnoun + noun compounds. These allow the writer to condense informationand focus on the research process instead of the researchers. Also included
are functional grammar devices for promoting cohesion, such as reference
and ellipsis.
With the aforementioned reservations in mind, the book may well be ofuse to students and teachers of academic writing who wish to understandthe text structure of the popularized research article or who intend to writeor publish such pieces.

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References

Behrens, L., & Rosen, L. J. (2010). A sequence for academic writing (4th ed.). New
York, NY: Longman.
Goldacre, B. (2008). Bad science. London, England: HarperCollins.

Kluge, D. E., & Taylor, M. A. (2007). Basic steps to writing research papers. Tokyo,
Japan: Cengage.

McCarthy, M. (1991). Discourse analysis for language teachers. Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press.

Input and Experience in Bilingual Development. Theres Grüter
and Johanne Paradis (Eds.). Amsterdam, the Netherlands:
John Benjamins, 2014. x + 204 pp.
Reviewed byJohn Eidswick
Kyoto Sangyo University

In recent years, the role that input plays in children’s development of second language abilities has been the focus of increased interest amongst researchers of bilingualism. To present recent research examining these roles,
editors Grüter and Paradis have assembled Input and Experience in Bilingual
Development. Drawn from contents of symposia at the 2008 and 2011 International Association for the Study of Child Language (IASCL) conferences,the book consists of nine chapters whose authors describe studies withspeakers of numerous language pairings (Dutch-French, French-English,
English-Chinese, Russian-Hebrew, Wapichana-Portuguese/Spanish, andSpanish-English) in several cultural and familial settings.
In their introduction, the editors outline how the chapters can be grouped
thematically into three parts. The first two chapters address issues of input
measurement. The following three chapters describe studies of bilingual
development linked with experiential factors, specifically proximal (basic child-centered metrics such as age and length of exposure) and distal(broader influences such as economic condition or education). The final fourchapters report on comparisons of bilingual and monolingual development.
In the first chapter, Grüter, Nereyda Hurtado, Virginia A. Marchman, andAnne Fernald focus on limitations of measuring input in relative (such as the

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percentage of L1 versus L2 caretaker speech) rather than absolute terms(such as words per minute of the speech of each caretaker) and on the useof mismatched measurement types for defining input and learning (such asmeasuring outcomes in terms of absolute measures but input in terms of
relative measures). To illustrate these limitations, the authors make use ofprevious research findings to create hypothetical, idealized data, both relative (percent of Spanish and English exposure) and absolute (total number of
Spanish and English words heard per day) for four bilingual children. These
data are used for various alignments of relative-versus-absolute language
exposure and outcomes analyses that demonstrate how some approaches toconceptualization of input and outcome can miss important aspects of input
variation. The researchers assert as ideal a situation in which exposure andoutcomes are both measured in absolute terms while acknowledging thepractical difficulty of obtaining such measures. Annick De Houwer follows
with a study comparing absolute measures of maternal language input inmonolingual (Dutch) families and bilingual (Dutch and French) families. Of
the 13 measures taken, the only substantial variation was in the amount ofmaternal input that occurred—some bilingual children actually heard more
Dutch than did children in the monolingual Dutch families.
The next three chapters concentrate on experiential factors that can color
the quantity and quality of input. First, Lara J. Pierce and Fred Genesee provide an overview of studies of Chinese L1 children adopted in Canada, focusing on joint attention (JA) interactions (involving simultaneous attentionof a child and caretaker on the same object). The authors summarize theresults of these studies, arguing that the results reveal two salient points.
One is that cultural backgrounds can influence choices for JA interactive
strategies (such as follow-ins versus redirectives). The other is that in termsof L2 proficiency, children might benefit from selective strategy use basedon the language used. In the next chapter, Sharon Armon-Lotem, Susan Joffe,
Hadar Abutbul-Oz, Carmit Altman, and Joel Walters review research on children of Russian L1 economic immigrants to Israel and those of English L1parents immigrating because of political and religious beliefs. Results leadthe authors to conclude that “successful L2 acquisition goes hand-in-handwith positive L2 ethnolinguistic identity in children from economicallydriven immigrant communities” (p. 95). In the following chapter, Barbara
Zurer Pearson and Luiz Amaral’s object of concern is the long-term fateof Wapichana, an Amazonian language of Guyana and Brazil. The authors
discuss a range of distal and proximal factors, such as language models thatchildren encounter, and stress the importance of ensuring their availability
to children to prevent the loss of endangered languages.

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The remainder of the book concentrates on comparisons of bilingual andmonolingual development. These four chapters are loosely related in their arguments against anchoring assessment of bilingual children’s L2 proficiency inthe normal ranges of monolingual ability. The chapter by Erika Hoff, Stephanie
Welsh, Silvia Place, and Krystal M. Ribot features research showing that bilingual children lag behind monolinguals in early language development and thatbilinguals exhibit greater variability in L2 proficiency among themselves thanwhen compared with monolinguals. These findings underscore the importanceof establishing more appropriate guidelines for evaluating bilingual proficiency.
In her chapter, Elin Thordardottir reviews studies on the receptive, productive,
and processing ability of French-English bilinguals in Montreal. Results suggestthat input quantity is related to vocabulary and grammar development but not
to processing ability. The findings of these studies contrast with the earlier chapter by Hoff et al. in that children described by Thordardottir could perform inline with monolinguals on certain measures. Three studies by Paradis, Antoine
Tremblay, and Martha Crago also concerned French-English bilingual children
in Canada. They found that in 11-year-old bilingual children, differences withmonolingual children in morphosyntactic ability (that is, the ability to makechanges to words that accord correctly with grammatical rules at the sentencelevel) largely vanished, suggesting that older bilinguals achieve long-term mastery of at least some L2 qualities regardless of the earlier impact of input variation. In the final chapter, Sharon Unsworth describes a study of English-Dutch
bilinguals that investigated the relation of input with a morphosyntactic feature(grammatical gender-marking of definite determiners) of Dutch and apprehension of meaning restriction in scrambled sentences. Although the results fordeterminer discrimination aligned with findings of other studies that showedlarger amounts of input result in higher proficiency, the finding of no differences
for bilingual versus monolingual consciousness of interpretive constraints inscrambled sentences is “difficult to reconcile with approaches to acquisition inwhich input plays a central role” (p. 195). The results of this study, along withthose described in the chapter by Thordardottir, suggest that although input
and experience are important to bilingualism, they do not explain everything
about its development.
The editors’ goal was to provide exposure to studies on input, experience, and bilingual development that were expansive enough to lay out abroad stage for future investigations. They have largely succeeded. Althoughthose working in the Japanese context might be dismayed by the absenceof studies based specifically in Japan (or even in Asia), the material in thisbook should nonetheless be of interest to anyone dealing professionally or
personally with emerging bilingual children.

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Languages and Identities in a Transitional Japan: From
Internationalization to Globalization. Ikuko Nakane, Emi
Otsuji, and William S. Armour (Eds.). New York, NY: Routledge,
2015. ix + 202 pp.
Reviewed byPeter Hourdequin
Tokoha University

This book is an edited volume that explores the dynamic nature of language
and identity issues relevant to contemporary Japan. In their introductory
essay, the three coeditors make a case for the volume’s theme of Japan intransition, which “is approached through critical discussions of global
trends, policies, and public discourses, as well as through analysis of associated local practices” (p. 7). The editors also identify three areas of transition
that they use to organize the subsequent chapters into sections: cultural,
ideological, and pedagogical.
Part I is entitled “Cultural Transition” and contains two chapters that attend to the spread of Japanese popular culture throughout the world. The
first, by Chris Burgess, offers a critical examination of the government-driven “cool Japan” campaign, exploring some of the implications and pitfallsof attempts to centrally manage the spread of “national” cultural content
overseas. In his chapter, Burgess traces the rise and fall of kokusaika [internationalization] and gurobaruka [globalization] discourses in Japan sincethe 1980s and juxtaposes these with the history of state-sponsored cultural
diplomacy initiatives in the 21st century up to 2013. Although the chapter
offers a useful context for understanding contemporary Japan, it feels instantly dated given the significant cultural and political developments thathave occurred inside and outside Japan over the past few years. A chapter
with a broader scope, and thus more staying power, might have considered
the multimedia English and Japanese-language discourses about Japan andJapanese culture that have shaped and continue to shape perceptions of
this island nation. Without such meta-awareness, Burgess’s conclusion that
“Japan’s inability to deal frankly with historical issues clearly limits effective use of soft power, particularly in Asia” (p. 29) appears to simply echo
external critiques of Japan that have been recycled since the 1990s.
The second chapter in Part I, titled “The Geopolitics of Japanese SoftPower and the Japanese Language and Studies Classroom,” is by Armour.

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It is an attempt to interpret trends in the study of Japanese language andculture outside of Japan (Australia) with global discourses and technologicalpractices. Armour expresses reservations about neoliberal discourse and its
accompanying technological practices that have led to broad accessibilityof Japanese popular culture but does not fulfill his promise to “discuss thepotentials, both positive and negative, that these technologies and media offer” (p. 50). The focus is squarely on the negative ways that students’ development of their own connections to Japanese language and culture via theInternet disrupts traditional pedagogy. Unfortunately, rigorous classroombased approaches to teaching in our era of rapid cultural and technologicalchange, such as The Pedagogy of Multiliteracies (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009),
are never mentioned in this chapter or in the volume’s final section, which
focuses on pedagogical transition.
The title of Part II is “Ideological Transition,” and this section contains
three very strong chapters by Ryuko Kubota, Nakane, and Otsuji. These
chapters insightfully explore what Pennycook (2010) termed “language as
local practice” (p. 1), which conceives of all language as an emergent featureof local contexts rather than a force that moves from center to periphery.
Kubota’s chapter draws on earlier case-study data to adeptly “demonstrate
how research participants’ views and experiences of learning English andother languages contradicts the sociolinguistic reality and expectation in
local and international contexts” (p. 60). In her chapter, Nakane examines“Internal Internationalization” by looking at interpreting practices in theJapanese criminal court system. Forensic analysis of various courtroom
interactions and practices leads to a sensible conclusion that “the internationalization discourse of appreciating differences across ethnicity, cultures,and languages and bridging the gaps between ‘us and them’ may prevent
the Japanese judiciary from addressing language and communication issues
that defendants may face in court regardless of their language backgrounds”(pp. 96-97). The final chapter in this section, like the other two, foregrounds
the diversity of actual language practices in contemporary Japan. In thiscase, the setting (and chapter title) is “Metrolingual Tokyo.” Otsuji employs
case-study and conversation analysis techniques to effectively show the
hybridized nature of language use in contemporary Tokyo. However, theauthor does not, in my opinion, present adequate proof that the hybridized
language use she analyzes is primarily an urban (or even geographically mediated) phenomenon. The chapter is nevertheless effective in problematizing existing categories and assumptions for understanding the boundaries
of languages and cultures of use in our globalized era.

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Part III, entitled “Pedagogical Transition,” contains three chapters inwhich the authors explore educational issues related to the book’s themeof languages and identities in transition. Chapter 7 by Robyn Moloney andSusan Oguro is a case study of heritage learners of Japanese in Australia
that, though limited in its scope, effectively uncovers some of the groundlevel factors that lead to differing language-learner identities and practices.
Jun Ōhashi and Hiroko Ōhashi (Chapter 8) provide a classroom-teacher
perspective on some of the possibilities for teaching what they term “humanistic values” (p. 141) to Japanese language learners in Australian higher
education. Their premise follows Kramsch (2006, 2009) and Kramsch,Howell, Warner, and Wellmon (2007) in problematizing the idea that communicative competence must be the dominant goal of language education
at all levels, and they provide examples of pedagogical tasks and off-campus
activities that are aimed at deeper, often reflexive forms of learning that leadto “self and inner growth” (p. 161). This section’s final chapter returns toJapanese classrooms as Sumiko Taniguchi and Cheiron McMahill consider
the role of tabunka kyousei (translated as multicultural coexistence) ideology and policy in the education of language minority children. The authors
present a case study of an NPO community school in Gunma prefecture that
promoted a counterideology, and they reflect on the negotiation and accommodation of this counterideology in context.
Languages and Identities in a Transitional Japan is a welcome contribution to discussions about the evolving cultures, ideologies, and pedagogies
of contemporary Japan and Japanese language studies. The book includes
research set in Japan, China, and Australia and tackles a variety of important
themes that relate to language education in the current era of rapid globalization and technological change.

References

Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2009). “Multiliteracies”: New literacies, new learning.
Pedagogies: An International Journal, 4, 164-195.
https://doi.org/10.1080/15544800903076044

Kramsch, C. (2006). From communicative competence to symbolic competence.
The Modern Language Journal, 90, 249-252. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.15404781.2006.00395_3.x
Kramsch, C. (2009). The multilingual subject. Oxford, England: Oxford University
Press.

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Kramsch, C., Howell, T., Warner, C., & Wellmon, C. (2007). Framing foreign language
education in the United States: The case of German. Critical Inquiry in Language
Studies, 4, 151-178. https://doi.org/10.1080/15427580701389615
Pennycook, A. (2010). Language as a local practice (1st ed.). Abingdon, England:
Routledge.

Positive Psychology in SLA. Peter D. MacIntyre, Tammy
Gregersen, and Sarah Mercer (Eds.). Bristol, England:
Multilingual Matters, 2016. xii + 388 pp.
Reviewed by
Harumi Kimura
Miyagi Gakuin Women’s University

If positive psychology is the scientific study of human strengths that help
us grow and thrive, then positive psychology in SLA is the scientific study of
L2 learners’ potential to be wholeheartedly engaged in learning an L2. The
front cover of Positive Psychology in SLA displays an image of a human handwith the fingers extended towards and touching the surface of water, making
gentle ripples. At the beginning of Chapter 1, each of the three editors sharesa story related to one of the three elements in the image. MacIntyre talks
about hands, Gregersen about ripples, and Mercer about water. I think theimage sends at least three additional messages to readers. First, this bookconnects theoretical discussion, empirical studies, and practical classroom
applications of past research and demonstrates that, like the three elementsin the image, they are interdependent. Second, the field of positive psychology can help us explore our potential to grow as individuals, build positive
relationships, and make a difference in our environment—like the fingers
making gradually expanding ripples in the water. Thus, readers will knowthat they are capable of, and even responsible for, doing their share. Third,
we can only see the surface of the water, implying that much remains to beinvestigated and understood because, according to the publisher, this anthology is the first collection of writings on positive psychology in SLA andefforts in the field are just beginning.
An ambitious starter to the book is Rebecca L. Oxford’s chapter (Chapter2), in which she proposes her EMPATHICS Vision of L2 learner psychology.
Although Oxford believes that the five aspects (positive emotions, engage-

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ment, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment) of Seligman’s (2011)
now-famous PERMA model are essential to improve L2 learners’ experiences and achievements, she has identified nine dimensions of critical psychological forces (the nine letters of her acronym) that can assist L2 learners
in achieving high levels of well-being and making rapid and solid progress.
According to Oxford, many of the themes in these dimensions have been
neglected in SLA previously but are now addressed in this book.
For example, emotion and empathy make up Dimension 1 in Oxford’s
model. Seligman lists positive emotions as one of the five aspects; recently
in SLA, enjoyment, one of the positive emotions, has been empirically examined. Dewaele and MacIntyre (2014) demonstrated that it facilitatesbuilding learner resources for processes of L2 development, indicating that
attending to positive L2 learner affect and using positive psychology activities as a way of improving L2 learning and teaching is necessary in utilizing
and theorizing the social and individual aspects of L2 learning. However,the second component of this dimension, empathy, does not seem to be
discussed in SLA literature, although it is a common topic in a range of fields
such as education, psychology, and neuroscience. If the fundamental goalof L2 learning is to develop interactional competence as well as attentive
listening skills so learners can move beyond superficial communication inthis culturally diverse, globalizing world, then empathy—seeing the world
through others’ eyes—should be properly explored as the key human social
capacity in SLA, as Mercer does in Chapter 3.
Among the nine dimensions of the EMPATHICS vision, Dimension 9 is
widely considered in this volume, especially in theoretical and empirical
discussions. The S of the EMPATHICS acronym represents diverse self factors such as self-efficacy, self-concept, self-esteem, and self-verification.
In the Vision-based approach to L2 learning motivation, which is now becoming mainstream and has been extensively researched in L2 motivation
research, the ideal L2 self plays a key role in leading the way for foreign
language learning as the future-self guide. In Chapter 4, Joseph Falout offers
a thoughtful and theoretical explanation of how, by making use of positive
emotions, L2 learners can connect their past selves to their present andfuture selves. In Chapter 10, J. Lake reports on a sophisticated quantitative
study that demonstrated that the global positive self at a general level andthe positive L2 self at a domain-specific level both feed into L2 self-efficacy
and L2 proficiency in his hierarchical, positivity-oriented model of L2 learning. In Chapter 11, Zana Ibrahim examines the phenomenon of directed
motivational current (DMC) experiences of L2 learners, as introduced inBook Reviews

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Dörnyei, Henry, and Muir (2016). A DMC is a long-lasting, powerful flow ofenergy used to pursue a goal like language learning, and it has the potential
to help learners reinterpret negative emotions, such as anxiety, in light ofpositive emotions such as happiness and prosperity.
Some other constructs such as love (Chapter 5), social capital (Chapter 6),
hope and hardiness (Chapter 7), flow (Chapter 8), and perseverance (Chapter 12) are also examined in theoretical and empirical sections of this book.
Some are discussed in relation to Oxford’s EMPATHICS dimensions.
Although the five aspects in the PERMA model and the nine dimensionsof EMPATHICS do not have to be either exhaustive or mutually compatible,
they reinforce the notion that language learners’ well-being is multidimensional and takes a variety of forms. It is safe to say that positive psychology
not only provides diverse perspectives for the field of SLA in terms of theory
building, empirical research, and classroom applications but also sheds lighton the empowerment of L2 learners.
Nevertheless, after reading this book, I have come to believe that the best
contribution positive psychology can make to our field is rich ideas for classroom-based studies and practical interventions. Two of the most significant
jobs L2 teachers have are convincing their students that L2 learning is worth
pursuing and helping them become autonomous learners. For example, in
Chapter 6, Gregersen, MacIntyre, and Margarita Meza discuss implementing the positive psychology exercises proposed in Seligman, Ernst, Gilham,
Reivich, and Linkins (2009) to investigate the effect of intervention in creating a positive learning environment called social capital. In other chapters,
teacher trainers share classroom and outside-of-class activities they havecreated based on positive psychology literature. For example, in Chapter 13,
Marc Helgesen tells how he has made use of eight types of behavior that canlead to a more satisfying life (see Lyubomirsky, 2005) and has turned theminto a peer-to-peer dictation task. In Chapter 14, Tim Murphey describes his
idea of students teaching significant others what they learn in school. Thisis effective in changing the self-focused minds of learners into task-focused
minds so that they can do away with the self-preoccupation that distracts
them from focus on task and therefore become the givers of information forthe sake of others, a behavior that can be called altruism. These examples
may help readers to draw the conclusion, as I have, that one of the most significant contributions of positive psychology to L2 teaching is the potential
to transform L2 learning tasks into life behaviors that are cognitively andsocially meaningful.

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In concluding this review, I suggest that readers should progress throughthe book by starting with the three anecdotal stories in Chapter 1, then moving on to any chapter they like according to their interests, and finally tryingout some of the ideas in their own action research or teaching. They may
want to narrate their own story and share it with their colleagues, friends,
and family, which could even be the start of another volume on positive psychology in SLA.

References

Dewaele, J.-M., & MacIntyre, P. D. (2014). The two faces of Janus? Anxiety and enjoyment in the foreign language classroom. Studies in Second Language Learning
and Teaching, 4, 237-274. https://doi.org/10.14746/ssllt.2014.4.2.5
Dörnyei, Z., Henry, A., & Muir, C. (2016). Motivational currents in language learning:
Frameworks for focused interventions. New York, NY: Routledge.
Lyubomirsky, S. (2005, January). Eight steps toward a more satisfying life. Time
(Asia Ed.), 165(8), 32-33.

Seligman, M. E. P. (2011). Flourish: A visionary new understanding of happiness andwell-being. New York, NY: Free Press.
Seligman, M. E. P., Ernst, R. M., Gilham, J., Reivich, K., & Linkins, M. (2009). Positive
education: Positive psychology and classroom interventions. Oxford Review of
Education, 35, 293-311. https://doi.org/10.1080/03054980902934563

Beyond Repeat After Me: Teaching Pronunciation to English
Learners. Marla Tritch Yoshida. Alexandria, VA: TESOL Press,2016. vi +188 pp.
Reviewed by
Branden Kirchmeyer
Sojo University

Teaching pronunciation to EFL/ESL students can seem daunting, even for
instructors who are native speakers of English. Teacher education programs
the world over often prioritize literacy and grammar despite the common
goal of developing practical communicative abilities shared by many language education institutions. Of course, texts for teaching pronunciation

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abound, yet books aimed at providing teachers with specific strategies often
gloss over the foundational concepts. Although larger handbooks for teachers may provide exhaustive and research-based reviews of the technicalaspects of pronunciation, they take a backseat role in directing teachers how
to teach pronunciation. Beyond Repeat After Me bridges this gap by successfully blending metalinguistic analysis of American English pronunciation
with practical pedagogical strategies. In this text, written specifically for“the needs and interests of nonnative speakers of English” (p. v), Yoshidapresents the essential concepts of American English pronunciation—fromthe articulation of individual sounds to the assignment of prominence ina thought group—in a manner that is both highly informative and easy toread. Divided into 15 chapters, Yoshida’s approachable exposition plays out
into two unspecified yet discernable acts: the production and teaching of(a) segmental features of pronunciation (individual phonemes), and (b)suprasegmentals (stress, rhythm, prominence, and intonation).
Following an introductory chapter that orients the reader via briefings
on trends in pronunciation education, factors affecting pronunciation learning, and key problems faced by students, Chapters 2 through 6 deal withthe pronunciation of American English at the segmental level, culminatingwith a chapter on teaching suggestions and activities. Chapter 2 introducessome basic concepts of phonology, including phonemes and allophones,
consonants and vowels, and the phonemic alphabet, before ending with anencouraging recognition of the descriptive nature of rules that “govern” pronunciation. Chapter 3 very briefly describes the human articulatory systemand equips readers with the terminology necessary for subsequent chapters. Yoshida’s advocacy for the use of various media to teach pronunciation
begins to emerge in this chapter. Some of her teaching suggestions include
the use of mirrors, dental models, and multimedia apps (p. 21). In Chapters
4 through 6 Yoshida presents and illustrates consonants, vowels, and certain
word endings of American English before expanding on the actual teachingof these features in Chapter 7.
Throughout each of these chapters the reader finds an abundance of figures, tables, and illustrations that serve to make the content more tangible:
for instance, a tip box illustrating how toy pop guns, air pumps, and balloons can help demonstrate articulation (p. 26) and tables showing tongue
position (p. 39) and lip positions (p. 41) for American English vowels. In
her preface, Yoshida emphasizes the importance of sound as a necessary
tool and aspect of pronunciation teaching and learning. Although visuals
are helpful in representing various aspects of spoken language, nothing can

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truly compare to using actual audio, and Yoshida does not disappoint. Her
companion website (http://www.tesol.org/read-and-publish/bookstore/
beyond-repeat-after-me), publicly accessible via the TESOL Press website,
contains videos and audio files useful for both teachers and students. Icons
denoting supplementary audio files, hosted on the aforementioned publisher’s website, average about two per page in these chapters.
Busy teachers looking to dive straight into activities and approaches toteaching pronunciation might start in Chapter 7, in which Yoshida adopts
a communicative framework proposed by Celce-Murcia, Brinton, andGoodwin (2010) to present a compendium of techniques that require little
background knowledge to understand and implement in any class. None of
the techniques listed here are original, but they often include bits of advice
amassed during Yoshida’s nearly three decades of experience and together
they offer an essential resource for EFL and ESL teachers in any context.
Suprasegmental features of pronunciation—stress, rhythm, thoughtgroups, prominence and intonation, and connected speech—are brought up
respectively in Chapters 8 through 12, which lead into a second set of usefulpedagogical techniques (Chapter 13). Yoshida continues to employ visuals
when explaining auditory artifacts: various sized balls indicate stress, contour overlays illustrate intonation, and bars of magnets convey connectedspeech patterns. Because Yoshida has earlier cited several scholars (CelceMurcia et al., 2010; Gilbert, 2008; Lane, 2010) who prioritized the teachingof suprasegmentals over individual sounds (p. 3), it is not surprising thatthese chapters make up the larger portion of the book and include morethan two-thirds of the supplementary audio files. Despite the increasing
complexity of pronunciation-related concepts, Yoshida covers a wide variety
of technical language both distinctly and clearly.
Chapter 13 is both entertaining and informative. Adapting the same
five-part framework she used to organize phoneme-focused instructional
strategies in Chapter 7, Yoshida delves into “Teaching the Musical Aspects ofPronunciation” with activities like syllable scavenger hunts, ball throwing,feet stomping, rubber band stretching, and orchestra conducting. Puppets,
songs, model clay, and jokes are also discussed, as is software that analyzes
and visualizes sound waves. These strategies—especially those that mightseem childish at first glance—should not be overlooked as appropriate forlearners who are above elementary age. This reviewer can personally attest
to their capacity for engaging less-than-enthusiastic university students andtheir ability to convert features of English pronunciation that typically evade
students’ perception into comprehensible and replicable input.

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The book closes out with a chapter aimed at drawing teachers’ attention
to student variability (Chapter 14) and a very helpful chapter addressing thenotorious spelling system of English (Chapter 15). A concise collection of additional resources and a glossary of over 200 clearly defined terms, repletewith examples, more than satisfactorily complete the book. On the whole,this text has much to offer any educator, regardless of experience, who istasked with teaching pronunciation to English language learners.

References

Celce-Murcia, M., Brinton, D. M., & Goodwin, J. M. (2010). Teaching pronunciation: A
course book and a reference guide (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Gilbert, J. (2008). Teaching pronunciation using the prosody pyramid. New York, NY:
Cambridge University Press.

Lane, L. (2010). Tips for teaching pronunciation: A practical approach. White Plains,
NY: Pearson Longman.

Exploring Listening Strategy Instruction Through Action
Research. Joseph Siegel. Croydon, England: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2015. xvi + pp. 259.
Reviewed byAdam Murray
Miyazaki International College

In this book, Joseph Siegel describes a longitudinal research project thathe conducted for his doctoral research at a private university located insouthern Japan (Siegel, 2014). Unlike previous research on listening strategy instruction, such as Ozeki’s (2000) one-semester study, Siegel’s projectspanned three academic semesters and involved two teachers and six classes of students. This book consists of three main parts: a literature review
of listening and listening instruction, a description of the action research
project, and a discussion of the findings.
In the introductory chapter, Siegel describes a situation that many EFL
teachers struggle with—the challenge of planning and delivering effective
listening instruction. A photograph of a journal entry written by one of

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his students enrolled in a listening course effectively illustrates the needfor more implicit instruction with the comment “Please teach me how tolisten English words” (p. 3). This comment confirmed Siegel’s observations
that although classes often include listening assessment, they rarely offer
instruction that would actually help the students become more competent
listeners. However, when he reached out to colleagues at his institution, they
did not have ideas about how to improve listening instruction. This situation
is not unique and many teachers, particularly in foreign language contexts,
can surely relate.
In Chapter 2, Siegel provides a brief review of the literature on listening
and listening instruction. First, he covers the theoretical models of listening
and basic listening-related concepts such as bottom-up processing (BUP)
and top-down processing (TDP). In Section 2.2.3, he proposes an original
theoretical perspective on the relationship between BUP and TDP. Unlike
other commentators who put an emphasis on BUP, Siegel argues that bothprocesses are required and that learners use TDP before BUP instead of in
the opposite order. For example, a listener uses background knowledge andlife experience to predict what she is going to hear.
Siegel then describes how listening instruction has evolved over theyears, along with the trends in L2 instruction. Specifically, he talks about
the osmosis approach, listening to readings of written texts, the comprehension approach, the subskills and strategic approach, extensive reading, andproblem-based listening strategy instruction. One of the biggest criticismsof all of these approaches is that they do not actually teach how to listen byproviding explicit instruction but rather rely on exposure or testing. Furthermore, although many textbooks include listening activities, most do not
actually teach students how to become effective listeners.
Because Siegel’s action research project involved listening strategy
instruction (LSI), readers who are not familiar with strategy instruction
should read section 2.3.2 carefully. On page 48, Siegel uses Rost’s (2002)
definition of strategies: “conscious plans to manage incoming speech” (p.
236). Strategies fall into two categories: cognitive (e.g., inference, elaboration) and metacognitive (e.g., strategy selection, comprehension evaluation). In general terms, LSI involves raising awareness of necessary skills(strategies) and using them.
For many readers, Chapter 3 is likely to be of special interest because
Siegel describes the LSI program that he implemented at his university. As inmany listening courses, the existing pedagogy placed an emphasis on listening comprehension and the classroom context. Siegel summarizes the objec-

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tives of his listening strategy instruction program: “to increase [students’]listening confidence, to develop listening processes and strategies, and to
evolve their abilities to transfer processes and strategies practiced in class
to novel listening events” (p. 58).
Siegel identifies 13 metacognitive and cognitive strategies that cover both
TDP and BUP. Examples of these strategies are genre recognition, discourse
marker identification, and guessing new words from context. He outlines thesteps in teaching strategies: (a) consciousness raising, (b) teacher modeling,(c) controlled practice, and (d) evaluation of strategy selection. Throughout
the course, the presentation of the strategies progresses from general TDP
strategies to more specific text-dependent BUP strategies.
Siegel explains how he added explicit strategy instruction to replace oraugment the listening activities in the commercially available textbook Interactions 2 (Tanka & Baker, 2007). On page 69, he provides an excellent
table that illustrates how he integrated the strategies. For example, insteadof doing a gap-fill activity, the students did a chunking activity in which they
identified the units of meaning.
In the second part of the book, Siegel describes action research and its
typical stages (Chapter 4). Because he was interested in improving what
he labeled as an “undesirable approach to listening instruction” (p. 78)
in the existing listening course, iterative action research seemed to be an
appropriate research framework for his study. For the first phase, three
data collection tools were used: a questionnaire, student interviews, and a
research journal. At the end of each phase, additional data collection tools
such as observation notes and pre- and posttests were added. One of thestrengths of iterative action research is the ability to make changes based on
the observations and reflections made after each stage. On pages 112 and125, Siegel effectively uses tables to show how he dealt with the issues that
arose in phases one and two of the research project.
In the third part of the book, Siegel reports on the project from the perspective of the students and the teacher. Using questionnaire data and interviews, he found that most of the learners felt positive about LSI. For theteacher’s perspective on LSI, he interviewed the other teacher involved withthe project. One important issue that the teacher raised was the challengeof teaching listening strategies with general listening texts that were notdesigned for LSI.
In the final chapter, Siegel discusses LSI in a variety of contexts. In terms of
the Japanese university context, he thinks that LSI is a feasible and desirable
alternative to the status quo because of the usefulness of listening strategies

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outside of the language classroom. He also calls for classroom trials and further action research to advance the field of listening instruction. Finally, herecommends that teacher education programs and training manuals place
greater importance on listening.
Where this book shines is the thorough description of iterative action
research with a qualitative perspective. Teachers who are looking for a
detailed “how to guide” for integrating listening strategies in their courses
might be somewhat unsatisfied and should look at Rost and Wilson (2013)
for examples of activities and practical advice about implementation. However, Siegel provides inspiration and a “game plan” for classroom teachersand curriculum designers to integrate language strategy instruction in theircourses.

References

Ozeki, N. (2000). Listening strategy instruction for female EFL college students inJapan. Ann Arbor, MI: Bell & Howell.
Rost, M. (2002). Teaching and researching listening. Essex, England: Longman.

Rost, M., & Wilson, J. J. (2013). Active listening. Harlow, England: Pearson Education.
Siegel, J. (2014). Problematising L2 listening pedagogy: The potential of processbased listening strategy instruction in the L2 classroom (Doctoral thesis, Aston
University, England). Retrieved from https://research.aston.ac.uk
Tanka, J., & Baker, L. (2007). Interactions 2: Listening and speaking (Silver ed.).
Singapore: McGraw-Hill.