This article examines the ways that students and professors imagine the space of higher education and thus shape their relationship to the larger academic community. Data come from a "Lengua Inglesa" program in northern Mexico. The findings reveal that personal and community histories, family networks, media, and migration converge to…

The commonly-occurring mismatch between second language student and course level, resulting in student boredom or intimidation, is due to overreliance on standardized language tests. These tests emphasize passive skills, such as recognition of grammatical structures and translation, and they ignore the element of communicative competence. As a…

Despite a common attitude that it is very difficult, and possibly unwise, to try to teach Mandarin Chinese to speakers of other dialects, there is a social and academic need for this kind of course, and it is possible to teach it successfully to most students. In the University of Alberta's program the likely candidates are the large group of…