The authors provide novice teachers with a step-by-step introduction to linguistic analysis, a tool to identify gaps between English learners' proficiency levels and the language demands of their coursework in the content areas.

A broad view of assessment development and design procedures portrays existing theories and methodologies as not fully representative of the knowledge, skills, and abilities students need to perform in the 21st century. Acknowledgement of these inadequacies has led to developments in assessment research attempting to meet contemporary expectations…

Many children struggle to communicate explicitly about the relationships between variables and concepts that are central to science content. In order for students to talk and write like scientists, they need to acquire ways of using language common in science discourse. For example, in the writing above, the student uses the word "play"…

The goal of this paper is to enhance the quality of language teaching and improve language teacher training by making spoken interaction research accessible to practitioners. Research on teacher cognition has shown that basic beliefs and assumptions about language affect language teacher training programs and language teachers' priorities in the…

A rapprochement between managerialism and collegialism has become commonplace within policy discussion on governance within higher education. Processes of deliberation within university governance are suggested as one means of fostering this apparent accord. I suggest that Dryzek's notion of meta-consensus can assist processes of deliberative…

The given article intends to focus on some approaches to teaching English as a second language at an advanced or proficient level. The paper primarily deals with the ways in which stylistic aspect of newspaper language can be put to use by university students thus becoming an integral part of their classroom discourse. The study aims at presenting…

Young Learners have less reinforcement to speak with others. One of the causes is the trend of formal or clumsy learning setting in emphasizing the speaking proficiency. Speaking based on the culture context also contribute them in increasing their motivation to express their ideas. "Casual style" as one of the language variations gives…

Language tests in immigration contexts typically perform a gate-keeping role in decisions about whether an applicant should be granted residence or citizenship in a new country. In refugee contexts, so-called language tests or language analyses also play a gate-keeping role, but a more ambitious one; namely that of providing answers to questions…

This paper provides an overview of discourse analysis from a linguistic point of view, discussing why it is relevant to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). It focuses on the following: discourse and discourse analysis; discourse analysis and TESOL; approaches to discourse analysis; systemic functional linguistics; theme and…

Communicative oral language tests have claimed high content validity, but have also elicited concern that the assessment scales are based on theory with little empirical justification. A new approach to construct validity can be found in discourse analysis, which could lead to the development of new communicative discourse tests in all skills. (CB)

Presents examples of misunderstandings in compliment exchanges in different cultural contexts and analyzes them as instances of pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic failure. Analysis of complimenting behavior norms forms the basis of a set of exercises designed to assist learners in developing the ability to recognize and use compliments…

This paper describes an action research project undertaken to look into the effectiveness of tasks designed to raise learner awareness of conversational strategies. The goal was to test whether tasks and direct instruction aimed at promoting learner awareness of conversational language at the discourse-level had any impact on the students'…

Reviews the results of six studies which indicated that the output of students involved in an immersion program was linguistically faulty, and suggests ways in which immersion programs can be made more effective and lead to greater linguistic competence as well as communicative competence in its students. (CB)

Examines four factors in the operation of formal schemata in the recall of written narrative texts in English by students in Hong Kong: quantity of recall; temporal sequence of recall from story-schematic and input versions of stories; the effects of second language proficiency level on quantity of recall; and the quality of recall. (31…

The advanced phase of the University of Florida's international teaching assistants training program extends the linguistic and pedagogical training of these assistants by concentrating on one-on-one and small group interactions with native speakers. Detailed analysis of videotaped interactions help in the development of strategies for the…