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Acknowledgments Very special thanks to: • Marc Helgesen for nearly thirty years of excellent conversation about listening, ELT, and life. The influence of our work together on several editions of English Firsthand, Practical English Language Teaching: Listening, and the first edition of Active Listening permeates this book. Marc also read a draft of the manuscript. • Michael Rost for teaching me a great deal of what I know about listening, through his research and also through talking over what must be hundreds of listening tasks in twenty-five years as an editor and writer. Neither is responsible for my conclusions here. The English department at Youngstown State University, Ohio, USA, is the antithesis of all those English departments depicted in academic novels; it is sane, supportive and focused on students. Thanks to chair Gary Salvner for his support of my scholarship over the years. Many of the ideas in this book were tried out at presentations at the JALT conference in 2006 and at several venues in Taiwan in spring 2007 during my time as a visiting professor at Lunghwa University of Science and Technology. Feedback from the participants was helpful. Thanks also go to Dorolyn Smith, who provided a story for Myth 8 and worked with me on Active Listening and to Lionel Menasche for helping me think through the authenticity model presented in Myth 7. At Youngstown State University, thanks to Rebekah Hoy for bibliographic and editing assistance, for suggestions on a draft of the manuscript , and for keeping another project running smoothly during summer 2010, and to the Youngstown State University School of v Graduate Studies and Research for funding her assistantship. Ellen Wakeford-Banks in Interlibrary Loan at Maag Library helped me a great deal. Finally, thanks to Kelly Sippell and the terrific staff at the University of Michigan Press. They are always a pleasure to work with. vi ~ Acknowledgments ...

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