A key goal in World Language Education (WLE) is challenging learners' preconceived notions about other cultures, aligning with the leading intercultural competence models, national language teaching standards, and the emerging Transformative Language Learning and Teaching (TLLT) paradigm. However, challenging stereotypes remains a concern to…

The study abroad (SA) context is often assumed to foster pragmatic development in a second language (L2), yet previous scholarship confirms that pragmatic norms are culturally-shaped and often remain imperceptible to uninstructed SA students (Bataller, 2010; Cohen & Shively, 2007; Shively, 2010). Because pragmatics is not traditionally taught…

This qualitative study investigated the types of content-based student performance data World Language teachers used to improve instruction and student academic achievement, the purposes for which they used data, the issues they encountered, and the suggestions they made for more effective use of data. The Standards for Foreign Language Learning…

In 2008, a new language education policy called "Gaikokugo Katsudou" [Foreign Language Activities] was issued by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport, Science, and Technology (MEXT) in Japan. Effective 2011, foreign language education became mandatory in all Japanese public elementary schools for the first time. With this dramatic…

The purpose of this study is to examine how a school-based leadership team identifies and alters school conditions to foster the development of TLCs. Many educators, school leaders, and politicians have embraced teacher learning communities (TLCs) as a vehicle for school reform. Despite the considerable documentation of the capability for TLCs to…

The present study explored how negotiation of meaning occurred in task-based synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) environment among college English learners. Based on the theoretical framework of the interaction hypothesis and negotiation of meaning, four research questions arose: (1) how negotiation of meaning occur in non-native…

Employing interpretive theory, this study investigated 331 university ESL teachers' socialization in language programs for international students. Looking beyond teacher preparatory education, in-service teachers' workplace experiences are essential to study because experience is instrumental in the shaping of belief systems (Wu and Shaffer,…