مجله تحقیقات زبان انگلیسی ایران
سال:1396 | دوره:5 | شماره:1 |تعداد مقالات:10

Teaching and Researching Writing (3rd ed.) is a thoroughgoing revised new edition with its coverage of key issues in this area. The edition has been produced with an intention to provide the readers with recent findings in the area to address the novel directions and to incorporate discussions of technology, identity and error correction. In the introduction, the author clearly specifies the main objective of this volume as a complete guide to writing research and teaching. This reader-friendly volume (with its 11 chapters in four sections) features boxes (Concepts and Quotes), to further reinforce readers’ understanding of key points and claims to be an ideal resource for language teachers, practitioners and writing researchers.

Second Language Research: Methodology and Design (Second Edition) is an introductory, yet comprehensive, volume in the field of second language research. The goal of the book as authors put is "to acquaint readers with the basic issues, problems, and solutions involved in conducting second language research" (p. xvi). The volume provides a very readable, practical account of different approaches to research drawing skillfully on published research into second language learning and use, providing the reader with a lot of practical examples from published studies. The book also adds some discussion and data-based questions throughout each chapter and some activities at the end of each chapter aiming to promote better understanding of the concepts. In spite of its many advantages, some suggestions may be made to correct, revise, and improve the volume for the next edition according to Brown’s (2001) textbook evaluation criteria, as shown below.

Susan Gass is University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages at Michigan State University. Her research is in Second Language Acquisition and includes the areas of Input and Interaction, Language Universals and Language Transfer. More recently she has become interested in the area of attention and how it relates to acquisition. She has written/edited a number of books on second language acquisition and has taught and lectured in various parts of the world. Currently at MSU, she is the Director of the English Language Center, Co-Director of the Center for Language Education And Research, Co-Director of the Center for Language Teaching Advancement and Director of the Second Language Studies Ph.D. Program. She recently served as President of the International Association of Applied Linguistics (2002-2008). In the following interview, Susan Gass (SG) answers questions asked by Karim Sadeghi (KS) on her role as co-editor of SSLA.