Includes bibliographical references (pages 247-259) and indexes.

Chapter 1 Communication -- Chapter 2 Communicative Development -- Chapter 3 Creating Communities of Learners in the Classroom -- Chapter 4 Classroom Discourse -- Chapter 5 Planning Instruction and Assessment -- Chapter 6 The Interpersonal Mode -- Chapter 7 The Interpretive Mode -- Chapter 8 The Presentational Mode -- Chapter 9 Professional Development

"Methods for Teaching Foreign Languages: Creating a Community of Learners in the Classroom provides a comprehensive approach to designing curriculum, instruction, and assessment for foreign language programs in middle schools and high schools. Based on a sociocultural understanding of language and development, the book attempts to bridge pedagogical theory and practice, and thus provides a principled basis for making curricular, instructional, and assessment decisions about classroom foreign language learning." (Preface, p. iii)

For preservice and in-service teachers of modern foreign languages who aspire to teach or already teach in middle and high school language programs, and who are unfamiliar with a sociocultural approach to teaching and learning. Its purpose is to help these teachers develop the knowledge and skills needed to create and sustain classroom communities of successful foreign language learners.