Language educators' goals include promoting cultural understanding and improving the language skills of their students. Virtual Exchange (VE) is a powerful means to do this. Students in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms often have few opportunities to communicate with other users of English. VE gives them virtual mobility, enabling…

This study aims to paint a vivid picture of the English teacher training courses held in Iranian private language institutes, both to critically analyse their aims and content, and to find their strengths and weaknesses. In line with this, qualitative data were gathered through information available on 34 institutes' websites, narrative…

This study aims at investigating the needs related to the attainments, content, processes of teaching-learning and measurement-evaluation aspect of Measurement and Evaluation course. This research was designed as a case study which is one of the qualitative research designs. The most common problem in Measurement and Evaluation courses was found…

Japan is known to be a country that manicures its socio-cultural borders. In this article I will examine discourses regarding openness, closedness and cultural diversity in relation to policies and practices that draw heavily on mythologies of English language as an inroad to greater openness and diversity. To do this I will examine two English…

Based on surveys conducted by institutions such as the National Association for Foreign Student Affairs, the National Council of Teachers of English and the Center for Applied Linguistics, this article attempts to present a composite picture of the EFL (English Foreign Language) program as it has developed in the 1950's and up to the present. (FWB)

This guide to language courses in polytechics and similar institutions in England is designed to help the student plan his language course in higher education. A suggested way of using the information in the guide is to plan the course with the aid of a flow-chart and then to find out from the index which polytechnics and colleges are offering…

Content-Based Instruction (CBI) may result in improved proficiency in language skills due to the meaningful combination of subject matter and foreign language as a means of communication. This paper shows how university students improved their level of English by means of a content methodology as they attended a course called Topics in Molecular…

This article presents an analysis of a course in oral English created at the University of Nancy in 1974 for adult beginning students of English as a second language. The linguistic foundations of the course are discussed (verbal communication and communicative competence), as well as its psychopedagogic and pedagogic bases (cognitive approach,…

This article reports on the experience of the Language Centre of Tabriz University in Iran. The Centre is responsible for teaching English in 7 faculties: Engineering, Medicine, Agriculture, Pharmacy, Science, Education, and the School of Nursing. The article first gives the background of the students that are to be taught, followed by an outline…

In January 1975, 31 Venzuelan students of science were admitted to the University of Essex. It was suggested that a pre-first-year period be divided equally between attendance of regular college courses and English courses designed especially for them. This article describes the English course hurriedly prepared to meet this specific situation.…

This volume is intended to introduce college teachers of English as a second language (ESL) to some of the basic concepts underlying the teaching of English in India. A theoretical framework is formulated within which problems such as the planning of syllabuses and designing of courses and tests may be understood. At the same time, practical…

The Beijing Foreign Languages Institute is one of about 60 colleges and universities in the People's Republic of China that is directly under the Ministry of Education. Attached to the Institute are a high school and an elementary school where students start learning foreign languages in third grade. Classroom teaching is supplemented by…

Describes one Japanese university's program to train English-as-a-Second-Language teachers in content-based language instruction methodology. Drawing on four years' experience, authors make a number of suggestions for addressing challenges of implementing a content-based approach in higher education. (Author/MSE)

Instructional materials designed for the content-based English as a Second Language program at Canada College's English Institute (EI) are presented in this manual. First, an introduction provides background information on the college, its student body, and the program. Drawing on relevant second language theory, this section offers a definition…

A month-long experiment simulated a piece of genuine academic research for a multinational group of English as a second language students in a study skills course in England. A description of the experiment includes students' day-to-day progress, a brief evaluation of the program, and changes required in teacher-learner roles and in learner…