文章基本信息

标题：From the editor.
作者：Orton, Jane
期刊名称：Babel
印刷版ISSN：0005-3503
出版年度：2008
期号：November
语种：English
出版社：Australian Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations
摘要：Secondly, the adoption of ILTLP across the whole country constitutes a fundamental shift in the orientation of language teaching and learning beyond the communicative approach of the last 20 years. It realises in comprehensive and integrated ways a range of research and reflection done over more than a decade by scholars and practitioners in sociolinguistics, communicative language teaching, and intercultural communication. Like all such changes on this scale, it presents exciting but challenging new work for teachers and students. Nobody is more aware of this than the team that developed the project and introduced ILTLP to Australian teachers and school administrators. We are very pleased to have been able to obtain for Babel papers written by several members of that team and to present them here in a single dedicated issue, just as ILTLP starts to become the nationally adopted approach to language teaching and learning. Each has undergone Babel's standard review process and appears as a stand-alone article. However, presented together they gain additional value and make a great resource for all who will be involved in implementing the approach and educating teachers to use it. Consonant with their espoused approach, the members of the team show their own working processes and model the emergent design they advocate as feedback and experience illuminate problems and help them develop their own grasp of what they mean.

From the editor.

Orton, Jane

The Intercultural Language Teaching and Learning in Practice (ILTLP) Project is a landmark production in a number of ways. Firstly, it had its genesis in a quite remarkable document, The National Statement and Plan for Languages Education in Australian Schools 2005-2008 (MCEETYA, 2005), a new, theoretically sound, and practical vision of what should and could be achieved in our field, which was signed by every Education Minister in the country--Federal, State, and Territory. The shared level of understanding involved in jointly agreeing to the complex set of actions to be undertaken is very encouraging.

Secondly, the adoption of ILTLP across the whole country constitutes a fundamental shift in the orientation of language teaching and learning beyond the communicative approach of the last 20 years. It realises in comprehensive and integrated ways a range of research and reflection done over more than a decade by scholars and practitioners in sociolinguistics, communicative language teaching, and intercultural communication. Like all such changes on this scale, it presents exciting but challenging new work for teachers and students. Nobody is more aware of this than the team that developed the project and introduced ILTLP to Australian teachers and school administrators. We are very pleased to have been able to obtain for Babel papers written by several members of that team and to present them here in a single dedicated issue, just as ILTLP starts to become the nationally adopted approach to language teaching and learning. Each has undergone Babel's standard review process and appears as a stand-alone article. However, presented together they gain additional value and make a great resource for all who will be involved in implementing the approach and educating teachers to use it. Consonant with their espoused approach, the members of the team show their own working processes and model the emergent design they advocate as feedback and experience illuminate problems and help them develop their own grasp of what they mean.

The articles have been ordered to move from the basic rationale for and description of ILTLP, through key processes in project implementation that permitted issues to be revealed and gradually better understood, to the theoretical discussions of choice of classroom language, assessment, and the learning processes of the teacher in ILTLP. This issue finishes with a review of a handsome new resource produced by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, an introduction to Japanese art for students of Japanese language.

Lastly, we must apologise for the delay in appearance of this issue of Babel and assure you, our readers, that it was unavoidable. Happily, the next issue is already waiting in the wings and will be out very soon after this one.