Language learning classrooms are sites of discovery not only of language, but of identity, culture, and community. The pedagogical approach described here, critical media work (CMW), integrates language teaching and social issues by using media literacy as a bridge. CMW explores antiracist discourse in popular media (digital and analog) to…

The advent of technology has made the Internet a fertile ground for much literacy learning to take place, and how to use the Internet discourse for language learning remains to be explored. The current study adopted a language-awareness approach to raise students' awareness of the forms and function of online language. A sample online comment…

This study aimed to examine junior college students' group dialogues on the use of high-level comprehension features in an EFL reading class. The participants were one high-ability group and one low-ability group in terms of discussion proficiency. Eight representative discussions conducted in the students' first language served as the major data…

Adopting a qualitative case study methodology, the present study illuminates how two multilingual students enrolled in a U.S. community college ESL class negotiated the sociocultural norms valued in their multiple communities to make investment in learning English in college. Drawing on Gee's theory of Discourse and identity (1996) and Norton's…

This study investigates the dynamics in the Spanish classroom between heritage language learner (HLL) dyads, second language learner (L2L) dyads, and mixed HLL-L2L dyads. Specifically, it examines oral, written and embodied discourse that informs our understanding of how learners attend to language. Analysis for this dissertation examined…

Using a liberatory discourse theoretical framework, this action research study investigated the experiences of students enrolled in basic skills English classes through a series of in-depth focus groups. The data were then analyzed in collaboration with students to draw conclusions. Student voices informed the data at every step of the inquiry…

Many studies have explored the difficulties faced by foreign language learners when they begin the learning journey from survival to advanced level. Most of these investigations, however, tend to focus on what makes the road to fluency strewn with obstacles and challenges; no significant attention has been paid to what makes the journey…

A major challenge for the increasing multicultural and multilingual community college student population has been the difficulty in accessing the register features which define academic writing. In this study, an analysis of clause structures using writing samples collected from 45 community-college students, 15 from African-American, Haitian and…

Critical Language Awareness (CLA) is one literacy tool that students need in order to examine limit-situations or "what went wrong." Norman Fairclough defines CLA as an awareness of the ways in which ideas become naturalized or taken for granted as "truths" about the natural and social world and how these "truths" are tied up with language in use.…

The classroom practices discussed in "Effective Second Language Writing" reflect various trends and methodologies; however, the underlying theme in this volume of the Classroom Practice Series is the need for clear and meaningful communication between ESL writers and their readers. While approaches differ, two core beliefs are constant: ESL…