It has been widely recognised that plurilingual pedagogy offers many benefits both for language learning and learning in general. However, in contexts where the linguistic profile of students is diverse, it can still be challenging for teachers to view working with the language resources of their students as feasible. In this article, we discuss…

Although the literature on computer-assisted language learning has demonstrated that digital tools such as online translators and bilingual dictionaries offer affordances to second language (or foreign language) writers of English to solve linguistic (lexical and syntactic) issues, the extent to which digital technology supports multilingual…

This brief report presents the preliminary results of the textual data analysis within a qualitative longitudinal study that examines ESL adolescent writers' voice in their academic writing as they transition from a High School Preparation (HSP) intensive English program to mainstream high schools (HS) in Sydney, Australia.

Students and teachers from different language backgrounds are at risk of becoming victims of conflicting trends and conventions when writing in English. This study compares conventions of English academic writing at several European universities with what is taught in English-speaking countries. Data were collected with questionnaires and by…

This paper examines the ideological underpinnings of the English as an Additional Language (EAL) curriculum that drive the practice of secondary teachers in Victoria, Australia, and how students' needs and rights are seen and addressed in and through English discourse and hegemony. Bakhtin's (1986) dialogic approach and van Lier's (1996) AAA…

This paper focuses on written corrective feedback and its challenges for teachers working with adult learners in the English language classroom. The teachers introduced in this paper teach in dedicated language centres, specifically a private college specialising in journalism courses and a university English language centre. Both teachers teach…

This book identifies three types of influential forces that pose challenges to innovations: socio-cultural dynamics, teacher individuality, and local circumstances. It uses languages, cultural traits, and intellectual heritages in the Asia-Pacific region as an example to show the resistance to Western-based pedagogies due to disparities between…

In multilingual Australian classrooms, one of the biggest challenges for culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) learners is mastering the academic language they need to succeed at school. Unlike everyday language, academic language refers to the abstract, complex and challenging language that students need to understand, evaluate, synthesise…

This paper explores the issue of metalanguage and writing instruction in the senior secondary curriculum. It reports on the use of a design based research collaboration between a very experienced teacher of Ancient History and a research team with the aim of improving literacy outcomes for a group of disadvantaged students. The case highlights…

The issues surrounding giving feedback to second language (L2) learners have attracted the interests of a number of researchers to date. Most continue to wonder how to give L2 students effective feedback. Some studies found that ESL/EFL students focus mainly on surface-level issues, those that relate to grammatical and mechanical aspects of…

Writing is often a massive challenge for the learners who study English as a Foreign Language (EFL). Many EFL practitioners are searching for solutions to help learners improve the level of their writing. In this auto-ethnographic study, two narratives are discussed. In the first narrative, the primary challenges of EFL writing encountered by a…

Responding to calls for research into measurable English language outcomes from individual language support consultations at universities, this study investigated the effect of individual consultations (ICs) on the academic writing skills and lexico-grammatical competence of students who speak English as an additional language (EAL). Attendance by…

The term "genre" first came into the field of second-language (L2) writing and, in turn, the field of English for specific purposes (ESP) in the 1980s, with the research of John Swales, first carried out in the UK, into the introduction section of research articles. Other important figures in this area are Tony Dudley-Evans, Ann Johns…

Few systematic efforts have been reported to develop higher degree by research student skills for writing publishable articles in science and technology fields. There is a need to address this lack in the light of the current importance of publication to science research students and the high supervisor workload entailed in repeated draft…

In this article, I report on the first stage of a whole school literacy project," Embedding Literacies in the KLAs" (ELK), which aims to support multilingual learners to access the literacies they need for high stakes curriculum learning. As it is "quality teaching" that has been found to have the greatest impact on student…