Systems Approach to Language Pedagogy

Akira Tajino, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus at Kyoto University, is currently a Professor of Educational Linguistics at Nagoya University of Foreign Studies, Japan. His research interests include EAP, classroom research, and pedagogical grammar. He is a former Director of International Academic Research and of the Resource Center for Language Education at Kyoto University, and is a recipient of the JACET (Japan Association of College English Teachers) Award for excellence in teaching (2011) and the JACET Award for excellence in academic publication (2014). He is the author/editor of more than 20 books, including Researching Language Teaching and Learning: An Integration of Practice and Theory (Peter Lang, 2009), Team Teaching and Team Learning in the Language Classroom: Collaboration for Innovation in ELT (Routledge, 2016), and A New Approach to English Pedagogical Grammar: The Order of Meanings (Routledge, 2018). He has served on the editorial boards of severaljournals, including ELT Journal (Oxford University Press).

“A genre approach not only explains English learning goals, but also prepares students ‘with the skills to analyze genre text and to make sense of complex [dialog] realities.’ Most of the assumptions stated here should be valuable for … curriculum creators, teachers, and students in the liberal arts. It also presents a new vocabulary in language pedagogy and creates a new platform for language pedagogy theory. It should be recommended reading that university libraries have on their shelves.” (F. J. Ruzic, Computing Reviews, August 13, 2021)

• Chapter 1: Toward Managing Language Pedagogy and Language Teaching Research.- Chapter 2: Language Acquisition: A Systemic View from Cognitive Linguistics.- Chapter 3: Teaching English Grammar for Communicative Purposes: A Systems Approach.- Chapter 4: Vocabulary Teaching: A Systemic Perspective.-  Chapter 5: Surveying the Landscape of Second Language Classroom Research.- Chapter 6: A Soft Systems Approach to Lifelong Learning.- Chapter 7: A “Softer” Instructional Systems Design for Language Pedagogy.- Chapter 8: Team Teaching and Team Learning: SSM applied to the team-taught classroom.- Chapter 9: Interaction in the Language Classroom: A Systems Approach.- Chapter 10: Systems Thinking: An ESP Genre Approach.