In pedagogical debates about Global Englishes (GE) and English as a lingua franca (ELF), there is widespread agreement concerning an urgent need for liberating teachers and students from the normative constraints of ELT's orientation towards standard English by raising their awareness of the characteristics and complexities of GE/ELF…

In vocabulary research there has been a shift from focusing on single words to considering multiword sequences, such as collocations. Despite the general consensus among language researchers that collocation is essential to effective language use in real-world communication, particularly oral communication, language-testing researchers have made…

Although data collection has been used in language learning settings for some time, it is only in recent decades that large corpora have become available, along with efficient tools for their use. Advances in natural language processing (NLP) have enabled rich tagging and annotation of corpus data, essential for their effective use in language…

Describes a "Vichian" approach (involving linguistic imagination and creativity) to the exploration of basic pedagogical matters in classroom language teaching. The approach is based on principles involving: (1) concrete language knowledge; (2) development from the concrete to the abstract; (3) the role of metaphor in verbal creativity;…

Five assumptions about the nature of verbal communication are discussed in relation to the communicative needs of second-language learners: that communication is meaning-based, conventional, appropriate, interactional, and structured. Implications for foreign-language teaching are examined. (Author/MSE)

Distinguishes two approaches to teaching speaking skills: (1) a "direct approach" in which new linguistic information is practiced explicitly; (2) and an "indirect approach", involving creating situations that lead learners to acquire communicative skills. Argues that a significant shift is occurring in the second approach and raises questions…

A discussion of the characteristics of effective language learners and the strategies they use in the second language classroom demonstrates how the four main principles of the communicative approach foster the use of appropriate, positive learning strategies. Implications for the language classroom are discussed. (Author/CB)

Presents background to the descriptions and discussions of child language that are presented in this issue of the journal on the theme of developing pragmatic competence. This background information, referred to as "intuitive knowledge," serves as a framework for understanding children's development of pragmatic linguistic competence and…

Supports a greater use of repeated recordings and elicited intuitions by sociolinguists in assessing the linguistic competence of individuals or groups. A replication of an earlier implicational analysis of pronominal variation in the Guyanese creole continuum shows that, with repeated sampling and the inclusion of elicited intuitions, the…

The "rear-view mirror" approach referred to by McLuhan refers to new media being used with the methods of older, different media. A Sens-it (SENtence- SENtence- SITuation) cell model is suggested as an effective use of interactive videodisk systems in contrast to the communicative competence approach. (Author/LMO)

Examines the development of students' writing competence in English, their second language. Explores Lev S. Vygotsky's perspective of the dialectal relationship between language and cognition. Discusses Vygotskyan concepts of mediation, higher mental functions, interaction, internalization, proximal development, and problem solving. (KEH)

After discussing the ties between language teaching and second language acquisition research, the present paper reviews the role that second language acquisition research has played on two recent pedagogical proposals. First, communicative language teaching, advocated in the early eighties, in which focus on the code was excluded, and then the…

Communicative proficiency, defined as native-like ability to use the language as a medium of two-way communication, is most effectively and efficiently achieved through instruction emphasizing development of listening and reading comprehension skills, and virtually excluding training in production. The comprehension approach avoids the teaching of…

In order to bring about some continuity and coherence among the various English for Special Purposes (ESP) courses at the Universidad Simon Bolivar, a systematization project was undertaken. The purpose was to provide general guidelines for the production and future revision of materials while taking into account the specific characteristics of…

The interlanguage hypothesis stresses that errors are a normal part of the language learning process. At the same time, in the view of many, the teacher has a responsibility to provide short cuts for the learner through appropriate corrective feedback. Conventionally, this has been taken to imply correction of expression by requiring repetition of…