The role of emotions in learning has been the focus of much debate in teaching circles, as has the question of discussing controversial issues in the classroom. The aim of this small-scale inquiry was to investigate how two groups of intermediate level students of French as a foreign language expressed emotion in discussing the controversial issue…

A well-written argumentative essay requires a thorough analysis of the topic with sufficient supporting evidence. However, obtaining information on the topic, summarizing the reading materials, and then presenting them in the form of an argumentative essay can be a challenging task, especially for English as a foreign language (EFL) learners.…

In this article we address the problem of sentimentality in teaching and learning difficult histories in higher education. While sentimentality has been widely theorised, empirical research is scarce. Here we contribute an empirical investigation describing how university students in an Argentinian setting engaged with histories of loss, death,…

This study draws on the theoretical construct of critical consciousness to explore secondary Chinese DLBE teachers' barriers to developing critical consciousness in the classroom. Employing a narrative inquiry approach, we explore the general struggles Chinese DLBE teachers face in classrooms, focusing on understanding their barriers to…

This study examines secondary school teachers' perceptions towards the discussion of culturally sensitive topics in three private schools in the United Arab Emirates. In light of this, it probes into teachers' perceptions on the relationship between culture and language and whether English can be taught without covering its cultural aspects. It…

Post-method era has been hailed in second language teaching, although a few practitioners have been able to use the tenets of critical pedagogy. Critical pedagogy aims to raise sociopolitical issues to emancipate both teachers and learners from power-centric ideas. The practical use of critical pedagogy has been the participatory approach that…

This paper reports on interviews exploring pre-service English as an Additional Language (EAL) teacher attitudes towards the inclusion of controversial issues in EAL classrooms. The paper examines how teachers perceive the role of the teacher in fostering EAL students' democratic understandings, skills, and dispositions, and whether these…

This study aims to motivate researchers, teachers and learners to utilize critical social research methodology in the field of second language learning and teaching in which neoliberalism and neocolonialism have been profoundly embedded and overwhelmingly dominant. Therefore, critical reflection (CR), participatory action (PAR) and emancipatory…

In response to the call for centering critical consciousness as a foundational goal in dual language bilingual education (DLBE), this article explores secondary Chinese teachers' instructional practices in Utah Mandarin Chinese DLBE programs and how their instructional practices reflect the missed opportunities and implementational spaces for…

This dissertation is a historical case study that focused on the founding and continuation of the GSSch to define the term, academic resilience and to determine how the GSSch had impacted "academic resilience." I examined qualitative data from interviews alongside research published during the founding (i.e. mid-1970s) and continuation…

Unexpected conflicts, or eruptions, in class during discussions of controversial issues are not uncommon in the field of English language teaching (ELT). This can be especially true for critical English language teachers who hope to address social justice issues in their classrooms. Existing literature of these events often mentions emotional…

Following the appraisal framework (Martin & White, 2005), in particular the two discourse-semantic systems of Engagement and Attitude, this study examines the extent to which second language learners in a US-Spain telecollaborative project (a) engaged with their own ideas and those of their partners and (b) expressed their attitude towards…

This study provides a situated account of a native English-speaking teacher who implements critical literacy in the English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom at a Korean high school. Teacher interview data and student presentations are analyzed to depict how a third space created by the EFL teacher and his students allowed meaningful and…

This study investigated and analyzed the use of rhetorical appeals, and the presence of hedges, and boosters in the argumentative essays of ESL learners. It is aimed at exploring the linguistic differences between male and female writers in terms of how they put forward their claims in an argument and how they appeal to their audience. The study…

Readers are expected to construct balanced mental representations of socioscientific issues discussed across controversial documents. However, readers tend to be biased toward documents that present belief-consistent perspectives and tend to refute documents that argue against their stance (text-belief consistency effect). Published studies on…