What is the book about?

This book is concerned with Teacher Language Awareness, or TLA, defined by Thornbury (1997:x) as ‘the knowledge that teachers have of the underlying systems of the language that enables them to teach effectively’. The focus of the book is the language awareness of L2 teachers (i.e. teachers of a Foreign or Second Language (EFL/ESL)), and the examples are drawn from the teaching of L2 English. However, the issues raised are equally applicable to teachers of any language that is not the mother tongue of their students. In many cases, they are likely to be of relevance to teachers of the mother tongue, too.

The book concentrates on teachers’ knowledge and understanding of the language systems, in the belief that these systems are at the heart of the language acquisition process and must therefore form the core of any teacher's language awareness. As the quotation above from Thornbury makes clear, TLA applies to all the language systems and assumes their interdependence, given that they are, as Carter (in Bolitho et al., 2003: 253) points out, ‘closely interwoven in the construction of meanings and of texts, both spoken and written’. The specific focus of the present book is on TLA as it relates to grammar. However, the discussion and the examples in the following chapters acknowledge and reflect the interrelationship between the language systems, and in particular between grammar, lexis and discourse.