Focuses on the changing role and status of English within new language-in-education policies in South Africa. The article presents a model providing a descriptive framework for analyzing and evaluating decisions made relating to language-in-education planning. The article concludes by identifying issues related to the process of…

Nonnative and native speakers of a language vary in their knowledge and control of the elements of communicative competence. This article introduces an interpretation of Coseriu's neo-Saussurean model that takes into account universal, language-specific, and culture-specific factors and illuminates the teacher's task. (45 references) (Author/LB)

Critiques a previously published article about the automatization of fluency within a communicative framework, and questions aspects of language learning principles cited by the authors. In response, the authors define automaticity and creativity and discuss other issues to clarify their principles. (CB)

Two comments are included on Vivian Cook's article "Going Beyond the Native Speaker in Language Teaching," which draws attention to the issue of the emphasis on the native speaker model in language teaching. Cook responds to these comments. (Author/VWL)

The author suggests that the starting point of improved language teaching can be found in the language classroom itself and not in the theoretical considerations of the linguist or the theories of learning advocated by the psychologist. At the same time, however, both linguistics and psychology can be extremely useful to the language teacher, not…

Discusses a model of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) program evaluation and suggests ESL professionals begin to see themselves within the wider context of training and development and begin applying useful disciplines of the business world to their activities. (four references) (JL)

Examines the curriculum of international teaching assistant (ITA) programs within a sociolinguistic model of language use, the "communicative competence" model proposed by Hymes (1972). The authors advocate reconceptualizing language skills in terms of communicative competence allowing ITA programs to better prepare ITAs for their roles as…

Highlights the benefits of an integrated practicum model for language teaching and suggests that the success of such a model requires extensive coordination and cooperation. (Author/VWL)

Conceptualizes a framework for conducting critical classroom-discourse analysis. Critiques the scope and method of current models of classroom-interaction analysis and classroom-discourse analysis and advocates using poststructuralist and postcolonialist understandings of discourse to develop a critical framework for understanding what actually…

In a study demonstrating that Black English was target for Hispanic boys acquiring English as second language, it was shown that extensive peer contact with Blacks was necessary but not sufficient for acquisition of two features of Black English (negative concord and distributive "be") and that choice of Blacks as reference played no role in…

A critique of a previously published article about artificial intelligence-based models for English-as-a-Second-Language instruction points out the author's failure to distinguish clearly between expert systems and connectionist models. In response, the author attempts to clarify his understanding of the usefulness of the models. (CB)

Using Zahorik's framework, which classifies conceptions of teaching into three categories (science/research, theory/philosophy, and art/craft), this paper reviews different conceptions of second-language instruction prevalent in the English-as-a-Second-Language teaching field. The aim is to shift the focus of discussion from behavior/activity to…

Proposes a discourse analysis model of student-computer interaction, which, by viewing the student and the computer as two participants in a dialogue, provides the necessary elements and structures to describe computer-assisted language learning (CALL) discourse, analyze data from student-computer interaction, and compare CALL activities with…

Proposes a more explicit description for reported speech in English grammars and English as a second language textbooks, with emphasis on: a clear differentiation between direct and indirect speech using prosodic, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic criteria; the role of deixis in explaining the internal syntactic adjustments in indirect speech;…

Describes the development and organization of the Colt (Communicative Orientation of Language Teaching) observation scheme and Lyster and Ranta's (1997) error treatment model, instruments including predetermined categories to describe features of instructional input and interaction in second language classrooms. Concludes that the choice of…