The aim of this article is to assist TESOL learners in effectively delving into professional literature for both their coursework and future teaching endeavors. It begins by addressing common challenges in critical reading faced by TESOL students, such as complex and technical language, varied writing styles and a lack of familiarity with TESOL…

Understanding and communicating through language is necessary for all content areas, but often it is limited to explicit instruction during English language arts lessons. Pedagogical translanguaging is an instructional approach that promotes multilingualism as a dynamic system. It is an asset-based approach that builds on students' range of…

An enduring contribution of Richards Sparks' work has been his exploration of the relationship between a learner's first language (L1) and a language that he or she learns subsequently (L2). The present paper considers that relationship from the perspective of learners and teachers of a 'foreign' language in classroom settings. The paper first…

Using authentic materials in the English as a second language (ESL) classroom can develop students' critical thinking (CT) skills, expose them to more realistic English, and support their motivation. Carrying out text analyses of authentic materials in the ESL classroom can also help students become more critical in their approach to reading.…

The translanguaging theory encourages language teachers to view their learners' linguistic backgrounds as a resource for creative expression. This article proposes an autoethnographically oriented application of the translanguging approach to studying emergent bilingual creativity in online communication. It includes three steps--storytelling,…

A great deal of research on second language (L2) input has provided useful linguistic evidence for the development of generalizations about and hypotheses on the usage-based nature of L2 knowledge. However, despite the fact that classrooms are one of the most ubiquitous sites of L2 learning, we still know very little about the linguistic quality…

The global spread of English has implications for English language teaching (ELT), in which teachers need to prepare learners to use English with culturally diverse English users outside of the classrooms. This requires teachers to change how they conceptualize the kind of English they teach and how English should be taught. An emerging ELT…

This article investigates how a community-university partnership between an art-museum and a teacher education program supported university students in a disciplinary literacy course to move beyond the privileging of discrete language systems to extend awareness of learners' multilingual and multimodal resources as a part of their integrated…

Currently, the role of English language has changed from being a language used among native English speakers (NESs) to being a language spoken by people of various backgrounds or known as English as a lingua franca (ELF). This phenomenon has affected different aspects of global English usage and users across the world. However, in Thailand, this…

Singapore is an ethnically, linguistically, and culturally diverse nation-state that has always practiced deliberate language policy and planning. The bilingual education policy, introduced shortly after the young nation's independence has led to the emergence of English-knowing bilinguals who are proficient in both English and their ethnically…

The aim of this personal reflection is to revisit the major concepts that have informed my academic research in the area of applied linguistics and second language development, and show how my overall pedagogical approach has evolved, thanks to the contribution of Vygotsky's sociocultural theory (SCT). The main focus of this paper is on the…

World language teachers are a special breed of teacher. In some cases, traveling and speaking other languages has profoundly changed their lives and they've channeled their passion into a career. In other cases, teachers are from another country, and are passionate about sharing their language and culture with students. World language teachers…

Variation in the use of terminology in the field of ELT can make dialogue difficult, if not impossible, with significant implications for sharing knowledge, structuring language provision, and, ultimately, teaching practices. Furthermore, such variation has the potential to influence negatively the perceptions of stakeholders both within and…

In Hong Kong, Chinese and English are considered separate mediums of instruction. English immersion is expected for schools that teach with English as the medium of instruction, and direct instruction in Chinese is often used to teach English in Chinese medium schools. Evidently, a great divide persists in the Hong Kong government curriculum. In…

In the context of globalization, teachers of English are no longer expected to cultivate learners' functional and communicative abilities alone; instead, the profession also requires teachers to acknowledge that teaching English is a political act, to discuss how power relations are negotiated through language, and to enrich learners' historical…