Riitta Jaatinen – författare

Learning Languages, Learning Life Skills offers an autobiographical reflexive approach to foreign language education. The orientation of the book is practical, containing rich descriptions of language learning situations including authentic language use and student stories.Teaching, including planning, methods, classroom work and evaluation, and case studies of "good" language learning and how dialogue based on reminiscing can be used to promote students’ well-being in the language classroom are described in detail. Many practical examples of how to develop autobiographical reflexive approach, based on the phenomenological philosophy, and methodology, are presented. Learning Languages, Learning Life Skills significantly enhances the communicative approach and going beyond it into a new paradigm, whereby foreign language teaching and learning are seen as foreign language education.The book offers unique ways of developing vocational language teaching as an integrated holistic approach combining language contents with vocationally relevant topics and the interactive, dialogical processes of working in language classes. Presented in a "common sense" way and accessible to non-native English readers, Learning Languages, Learning Life Skills will be of interest to teachers as well as researchers in the areas of applied and educational linguistics.

Recent research highlights the importance of an individual's own skills and attitudes to learning when studying a second language. A number of contributors explore the theory and practical application of such experiential learning.

The goal of foreign language teaching is expanding from communicative competence towards an intercultural action competence. Essential in the new orientation is the shift towards a more balanced emphasis between the external factors in the learning environment and the personal capacity, conceptions, beliefs and assumptions inside the learner's mind. As part of the changes, assessment is seen as an important means of enhancing the elearning processes, emphasising the role of refelctive self-assessment. The text explores and integrates the necessary knowledge base and practices in foreign language education in terms of the basic concepts of experiential learning, intercultural learning, autobiographical knowledge and teacher development, together with the philosophical underpinnings of foreign language education.