The number of English learners (ELs) in U.S. schools continues to increase rapidly. Schools often struggle with the issue of providing English language instruction that does not interfere with ELs' content instruction. Many instructors are turning to coteaching: a content teacher and an EL teacher working together to meet the English and content…

College graduates are falling short in oral communication skills, yet these skills are important for employment and for effective civic engagement. Catholic colleges and universities are well suited to revive sustained attention to the development and assessment of oral communication skills in today's higher education context. We can do this by…

Little by little, (or, simply, MALL) is taking force in the field of education, as it supports language blended learning and language learning ubiquity. The study presented here belongs in the Social Ontology-based Cognitively Augmented Language Learning Mobile Environment (SO-CALL-ME) research project, whose final aim is to design and create…

This paper explores a pedagocial approach to teaching oral English---Conversation Analysis. First, features of spoken language is described in comparison to written language. Second, Conversation Analysis theory is elaborated in terms of adjacency pairs, turn-taking, repairs, sequences, openings and closings, and feedback. Third, under the…

A persistent problem for teachers in English as a Second Language (ESL) situations concerns students who speak their shared common language instead of English in the classroom. Considering the inherent difficulty of the speaking skill, this is understandable. Learners often prefer to interact socially in their native language, allowing them to…

According to Ur (1996, 120), "of all the four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), speaking seems intuitively the most important." Indeed, whether for business or pleasure, a primary motivation to learn a second language is to be able to converse with speakers of that language. However, in addition to being an important…

Teaching English became a professional and academic field from a half century ago. Many researches for teacher education and teacher training have been conducted in order to raise the English as well as the foreign language trainers' knowledge and capabilities in carrying out effective lessons in classroom. During second millennium of speedily…

Addresses the relationship between educational theory and classroom practice using data from an ethnographic study of English as a Second Language (ESL) learning at a Canadian school. Outlines the conflict between two language ideologies shaping and being shaped by ESL teachers', assistants' and students' classroom practices. Discusses…

In this article I discuss the emergence of practices of "hearing" in the midst of English language learning activities. I focus on listening activities during oral English lessons at two public high schools in Tokyo, Japan. One setting is a liberal arts high school. The other is a technical high school where students are trained in…

The Nonpublic School Program English as a Second Language was designed to provide remedial instruction in the English language with emphasis on oral English for those eligible non-English speaking pupils enrolled in Title I nonpublic schools. It operated in 89 schools and served over three thousand pupils in grades kindergarten through twelve. The…

Gives an overview of the development and testing of an interview instrument used by teachers of English as a second language to assess the oral proficiency of nonnative speakers. (The actual instrument is reprinted in the article that follows this one). (SK)

Provides a detailed linguistic-stylistic analysis of a seven-year-old black child's "sharing time" narrative, a narrative clearly in the oral rather than the literate style. Discusses the danger of oral style children (often minorities) appearing incoherent to the teacher and being given less (and poorer quality) instructional time and…

This paper reviews research about how speaking a dialect can influence students' writing and how writing should be taught to students who speak a dialect of English. Literature on the writing errors commonly made by speakers of Black English and other American dialects is summarized. (PP)

A work-study program was designed to provide black inner-city youths with instruction and guidance in skills needed in their current jobs, especially their ability to speak standard English. The program used the technique of modeling to arouse students' motivation to adopt standard spoken English. Research has shown that the use of a model will be…

This report presented the final evaluation of a Bilingual-Bicultural Program in a community school in the Bronx, grades one through six. The project was designed to increase the spoken English language comprehension of elementary school age children who were found to be below the 20th percentile on the Language Assessment Battery. Ten educational…