In recent years, the use of English corpora to instruct grammar in writing classes has become increasingly popular. In English for Specific Purposes classes, such a novel approach is critically important since it not only allows teachers to achieve a profound understanding of which syntactic structures should be instructed, but it also increases…

Since task-based learning was proposed in the field of second language acquisition in the 1980s, the popularity of this teaching approach has risen due to the effectiveness in enhancing learners' communicative competence. To complete tasks, learners have opportunities to use the target language in various situations so that they can transfer what…

Do Na Chi is a lecturer in the English Language Education program at An Giang University, Vietnam. Teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) at a language center for young adults, Chi wants create interesting activities that can engage students, and sees the learning center as a place for them to practice what they have learned in class. He…

Target 4.7 in Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4) aims to ensure that education is equally accessible to all genders who are taught to appreciate human rights and cultural diversity as global citizens. Understanding and sympathy for intercultural differences become important in higher education. With a focus on the foundations and dimensions of…

Communities of practice have taken a firm foothold in the second language teaching profession due to their promise of enabling participants to self determine their professional development needs and, through peer mentoring, achieve their goals. This article provides a rationale as to why the model is particularly well suited to teacher…

East and Southeast Asia represents a linguistically and culturally diverse region. For example, more than 700 languages are spoken in Indonesia alone. It is against this backdrop of diversity that the ten countries that comprise Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) have recently signed the ASEAN Charter which, while calling for respect…

English learners in EFL contexts where grammar-based instruction is still dominant often lack opportunities to use the target language both within and outside the classroom. In 2010, we initiated a club-based approach to facilitate students' learning beyond the classroom. It focused on meaningful communication, authentic tasks, student agency,…

Teaching in Vietnam recently, I had opportunities to work with some amazing students and teachers. Being in such a position lent itself well to cultural exchanges inside and outside the classroom. However, it was clear to me, to my colleagues, and I believe to the majority of students that there was a need to dig deeper--to move beyond the…

Social class has been underresearched in the field of applied linguistics. The central goal of this forum was to stimulate more conversation about social class as it impacts language learning and teaching. In this article, I comment on 3 salient themes that have emerged in the 5 articles: (1) agency and structure in language learning and teaching,…

Recent research on language planning and policy highlights the effects of globalisation in spreading the English language as a medium of instruction (EMI) in non-native English speaking (NNES) countries. This trend has encouraged many universities in NNES countries to offer EMI education programmes with the objective of developing national human…

This article describes the development and validation of a Vietnamese bilingual version of the Vocabulary Size Test--a test which measures written receptive vocabulary size. The test can be used to measure the English vocabulary size of Vietnamese learners of English. A learner's total vocabulary size is calculated by multiplying their test result…

The Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) field continues to experience increased valuing of experiential practitioner knowledge. A welcome result of this evolution has been the broadening of research perspectives. The 16 practitioner narratives in "Insights on Teaching Speaking in TESOL" are written by…

Learner autonomy has been identified as a complicated capacity that potentially has a great impact on personal growth and achievement. Different mediated attributes associated with situational, psychological, cultural and political aspects of this construct have been developed and examined to facilitate the promotion of this educational goal.…

Although a key component in English language teaching programs, English textbooks have been criticized for not offering classroom learners adequate opportunity for learning authentic language (Bardovi-Harlig, 2001; Grant and Starks, 2001; Wong, 2002; Vellenga, 2004). This is because instead of making use of language samples that native speakers…

In this article, the author talks about a diary project that arose from a situation that was both an opportunity and a challenge. While teaching in Vietnam in the spring of 2004, the author received an invitation from the national university in Hanoi. The letter asked him to teach there and specifically to develop a postgraduate course called…