Professional Development through Collaboration

Fluency in EFL

(An edited volume by EFL practitioners in MASH Collaboration with Paul Nation)

The objective of this volume is to gather the voices of teachers/researchers in EFL to help explore

fluency in their contexts and how that informs ELT theory, practice, and methodology. In EFL, fluency

as a classroom goal has been largely neglected, for a variety of contextual and motivational reasons,

including: 1) a focus on test preparation, and 2) a perceived lack of authentic opportunities to use

English. Due to a number of relatively recent developments, fluency has been increasingly recognized

as an important classroom objective and essential component of learner competency.

As co-editors, we are calling for abstracts to bring together practicing teachers and researchers

investigating fluency in the EFL context. We are interested in articles that deal with some of the

following skills:

• Reading fluency

• Listening fluency

• Writing fluency

• Speaking fluency

• Other topics relating to fluency in EFL. One such paper could be concerned with how to stage

introduction of the different fluencies in an EFL context.

In particular, we are interested in papers that:

• Focus on the introduction and implementation of successful extensive programs that have lead

to measurable and/or observable learning outcomes

• Reviews of EFL contexts describing the development of such practices

• The current growth of extensive approaches in EFL and considerations for future directions in

extensive teaching and research.

This is a proposed volume, and vetting of the volume will proceed as follows:

1. Abstracts up to 500 words to researchingasia@eltresearch.com by May 31, 2010.

2. Successful abstracts will be confirmed on an ongoing basis from when they are received and

will be reviewed until May 31, 2010.

3. Full papers will be due August 31, 2010.

4. Second screening in September will determine manuscripts for the book proposal.

5. Final edited manuscripts will be due before September 30, 2010.

6. The completed book proposal will be sent to the publisher by October 31, 2010.

7. Proposed publication: Fall, 2011 at the earliest.

Please note that this is a proposed book, and so the volume must go through regular vetting with the

publisher. Though we are confident of its importance, there is no guarantee it will be published.

Thanks for your time and consideration. We are looking forward to receiving your abstracts. Please feel

free to forward this call to potentially interested colleagues, or to post it to appropriate mailing lists.

All the best,

Theron Muller, Steven Herder, Philip Shigeo Brown and John Gunning

Editors, Fluency in EFL

Cheers,
Steven Herder