Studies on the role of digital technology in teaching and learning English tend to focus on secondary or higher education contexts and/or with literate or educated students. The recent global pandemic has highlighted the urgent need to advance digital equity and inclusion for adult learners with limited education and literacy. Despite their basic…

Children are members of families and communities, and the languages learnt within these contexts contribute to a child's sense of "belonging, being and becoming" throughout life (Department of Education Employment and Workplace Relations, 2009). Encouraging children to bring their home languages into early childhood education and care…

In this paper, a series of vignettes is used to explore important current challenges in TESOL. These vignettes are drawn from many different settings, including Bengali-, Pahari- and Chinese-speaking children in UK primary schools, speakers of Aboriginal English in Australia and Chinese teachers of English on courses in Higher Education. A number…

This paper aims to (re)engage ESL with the broader literacy debate, by calling for a better recognition of what literacy means for second language learners within contemporary Australian education systems, and acknowledging the specialist professional knowledge that ESL teachers bring to the mainstream. The literacy debate that has shaped so much…

In second language classrooms, listening is gaining recognition as an active element in the processes of learning and using a second language. Currently, however, much of the teaching of listening prioritises comprehension without sufficient emphasis on the skills and strategies that enhance learners' understanding of spoken language. This paper…

This paper describes the introduction and evaluation of a six-month peer mentoring scheme at one Australian university. The scheme was initiated with the primary aim of promoting the English language development of staff who have English as an additional language (EAL), a cohort which includes postgraduate students working as tutors. It was…

Recent studies of emerging technologies have shown that mobile phone production now exceeds one billion devices globally per year (Johnson, Levine & Smith, 2008). With a level of production that signifies a shift in the ownership of "networked machines" from institutions to individuals, the broad appeal of portable technologies now…

Public debate on literacy in remote Indigenous Australia emphasises a narrative of failure. The discussion commonly focuses on the low literacy and numeracy benchmarks achieved in remote Indigenous schools. Little attention has been paid to the short history of literacy in isolated Indigenous societies, the shift from oral to literate traditions…

This paper argues that violence in society can be reflected in the microcosm of the classroom, primarily taking the form of a range of bullying behaviours, and that TESOL educators can play a role in addressing conflict by connecting individuals and communities through a dialogic approach to TESOL. The article goes on to describe the nature of…