The Story behind the Book: The Invisible Foreign Language Classroom
This week's story-behind-the-book post provides a look behind the scenes for The Invisible Foreign Language Classroom by Laura Dabbs and Betty Lou Leaver.
From one of the co-authors (Leaver) -
For a conference presentation, I could not find any good references that compiled all the known information about how personality differences play out in classrooms. Although my frequent co-authors. Dr. Madeline Ehrman and Dr. Rebecca Oxford, and I had written various treatises on the topic and lectured on it quite frequently, we could not find any sources beyond our own handouts that went into the level of detail needed for this conference. Further, I felt a need for a book that contained all that information in one place instead of in a dozen or more handouts. Since Rebecca was currently teaching graduate courses in learner-centered instruction, I asked if she had a capable graduate student with a strong background in interpersonal differences who could help collate all the information I had -- and more.
Enter Laura Dabbs, who essentially did most of the writing of the book. She pulled together her own research along with decades-long practical experience (encapsulated in handouts) and made a book that can serve as a manual for any classroom teacher or administrator, wanting to make the most of the learner differences in their classrooms, and for any student, feeling uncomfortable in their learning environments and wanting to ameliorate that situation.
Book Description:
An in-depth guide for teachers seeking to understand dysfunctional classrooms and create a mathemagenic experience. A unique resource, based on experience with thousands of language learners. Based on Jungian psychology, using MBTI categories (with a passing reference to equivalents in Socionics), ths book presents an explanation behind dysfunctional language classrooms (though much could apply to any K-16 classroom) and provides a heuristic for managing the classroom successfully. For each MBTI type, there is a section posing a teacher of that type and a classroom of randomly gathered types (as in real life). A discussion follows as to the source of any dysfunction, the way to accommodate all learners, an exploration of the probable comfort level of that teacher, and a posed question as to what would be the case if the class were the same but the teacher the polar opposite. Meant for application by teachers and for use in faculty development, it is a book that takes readers through the analytic process to arrive at their own heuristic in approaching their classrooms. Real-life examples are provided for many of the personality types.
Read an excerpt from the book HERE.
Read more posts about Laura Dabbs and Betty Lou Leaver and their books.
For more book back stories, click HERE.
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