Michael Swan and Catherine Walter (see EJ1142765) take issue with the current emphasis in the teaching of listening and reading on higher-order skills-and-strategies training. They argue that L2 learners typically already possess the relevant skills and strategies necessary for listening and reading in L2, and, by implication, can and do deploy…

In 2013/2014, I conducted two consecutive cycles of exploratory action research aimed at improving the quality of my French engineering students' oral presentations in English. Each cycle involved a different group of students. I collaborated with the students extensively throughout the project and found that the experience was highly beneficial…

Large corpora such as the British National Corpus and the COBUILD Corpus and Collocations Sampler are now accessible, free of charge, online and can be usefully incorporated into a process writing approach to help develop students' writing skills. This article aims to familiarize readers with these resources and to show how they can be usefully…

Process-oriented writing instruction stresses the value of between-draft revision. Yet current literature and traditional pedagogy have provided little guidance for motivating student writers to look beyond surface errors to develop and to refine their communicative intentions. Based on the assumption that this deep-level revision is most…

For teachers of English as a Second Language, there are two tools that must be kept honed to maintain professionalism: (1) the quality of skills in the language being taught, even for native speakers, and (2) willingness to learn or improve skills in other languages. Both can be important in providing a high-quality learning experience for others.…

Viewing language learning as another skill acquisition process allows correction to be seen differently. An "error" occurs when knowledge is faulty, a "mistake" when only the performance is faulty. Mistakes can be corrected when (1) the student desires correction; (2) knows what is correct; (3) knows a mistake has occurred; and…

Considers several ways in which texts are used in English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) classrooms where communicative skills are taught. These texts fail to offer the EFL student the possibility of personal involvement of the sort that would be normal with a text in the native language. Suggestions are made for using texts in a way which encourages…

Discusses one approach found to be successful for teachers with little formal English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) training and few ESL text materials to help their primary-aged ESL students to develop wide and varied uses of English. A discussion focuses on the use of wordless books in oral language and literacy development. (11 references) (GLR)

Describes the development of a program for helping postgraduate students overcome both the cultural and linguistic problems they face when they go on to study in a country with very different traditions and ways of working than they are accustomed. (Author/VWL)

Discusses language as skill and the idea that there are common elements between language and general skill acquisition. (Author/VWL)

A three-month extensive reading program in England, inspired by Krashen's Input Hypothesis, used graded readers to improve English as a second language learners' linguistic skills. Program results showed a marked improvement in the subjects' language skills, especially in writing. (Author/CB)

Teachers of writing (native or second language) should structure their classes in ways that will help students expand their repertoire of strategies for rewriting compositions. (Author/CB)

Suggests rethinking purposes of the second-language listening lesson, and examines ways the skill can be taught, not just practiced. The approach is based on micro-listening exercises that practice individual subskills of listening. Implications of authentic materials are examined, a case is made for teaching recognition of features of spontaneous…

A model is described to help writers of English as a second language to clarify and rewrite written work which may be incoherent and, as a result, fail to communicate the writer's intentions. The model's steps include reconstructing the reader-writer interaction, uncovering covert questions, and redrafting. (Author/CB)

Supports the use of authentic listening materials for students at all levels of English as a second language. A model of listening comprehension instruction that uses news broadcast materials in beginning and advanced student lesson plans is described. (Author/CB)