Contemporary literacy practices need to be addressed in school settings. That requires awareness by teachers and students of the cultural and linguistic diversity present in our cosmopolitan societies. In the field of English language teaching (ELT), one way of responding to such demand is engaging teachers with multiliteracies pedagogies…

In recent years, the use of English corpora to instruct grammar in writing classes has become increasingly popular. In English for Specific Purposes classes, such a novel approach is critically important since it not only allows teachers to achieve a profound understanding of which syntactic structures should be instructed, but it also increases…

Linking adverbials are important for creating textual cohesion in both written and spoken English. While there are reference grammar books describing the usage patterns of linking adverbials and studies investigating learners' difficulties in using these cohesive devices, there is little discussion on how to effectively teach and learn them. By…

Currently, a growing number of teaching approaches focus on aspects of variation in language (e.g. English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), World Englishes, English for Specific Purposes (ESP), genre theories, etc.); however, each of these approaches tends to focus on particular (specific) aspects of language variation and do not fully account for the…

Grammar can be viewed both as knowledge and as ability. When viewed as knowledge, the focus is on rules for sentence formation. When viewed as ability, the focus is on how grammar is used as a resource in the creation of spoken and written texts. Twelve principles are proposed as the basis for a pedagogy that focusses on acquiring learning to use…

This study assesses the extent to which situational authenticity has been implemented in three commercial ELT textbook series in Hong Kong, which are designed to reflect the local sociolinguistic setting. The analysis involved the quantification and categorization of both written and spoken texts in the textbooks. The results of this analysis were…