Jessica Wu is Research and Development Program Director at the Language Training and Testing Center (LTTC) in Taipei, Taiwan. Jessica has been deeply involved in the development and validation of the General English Proficiency Test (GEPT) in addition to a number of other foreign language testing programs. Her research focuses on speaking…

While time and context have been found to have both synergistic and cumulative effects on language learners' cognitive and socio-affective development, time itself remains under-conceptualised in those processes. Drawing on the Bakhtinian construct of chronotope Bakhtin [(1981). "The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays". Translated by…

Although the ELT (English Language Teaching) materials development literature points to the influence of classroom experience on materials design, the literature is less specific about "how" such experience affects skilled textbook writing. Drawing primarily upon concurrent verbalization and pre- and post-concurrent verbalization…

The present article drew on a larger interpretivist case study research of the role of teachers' knowledge and beliefs in their teaching practices. It was constructed with the participation of four teachers that studied the same BA in ELT program and worked in the same state university in Mexico. The purpose of this article is to raise awareness…

This article presents the findings related to the identity construction processes of an Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher in the context of Iran. Data were collected using a life history approach with a critical-event focus and analyzed via social ecology of identity (Wenger, 1998). The findings indicated that the participating…

This essay examines textual engagement of two students during a Multiliteracies lesson on a French poem ("Liberté", Paul Eluard) in terms of the "multilingual subject" (Kramsch, 2009) and "the authentic speaker" (Van Compernolle, 2016). The case studies are based on personal data: (1) the students' autobiographies…

This article aims to broaden the scope of language teacher identity research by investigating the emotional demands on teachers-in-training and nonnative English-speaking teachers (NNESTs) in particular. We examined how our focal NNEST participant, Puja, was confronted with and successfully negotiated numerous emotional challenges in her first…

This book explores the experiences of men and women who train to teach ESL as a second career. Drawing from in-depth interviews and observations of 30 students (aged 45 to 73) in a TESOL graduate program, this book provides portraits of these individuals as they develop as teachers. It describes the processes they go through to launch their…

Teaching is recognised as an emotional practice. Studies have highlighted the importance of teachers' emotional literacy in the development of pupils' emotional skills, the central position of emotions in teachers' ways of knowing, and in their professional development. This longitudinal study draws on a dialogic understanding of emotion to…

Aiming to develop a contextualized understanding of language learner agency (LLA) as defined by van Lier (2008), this study asks the question: How do Taiwanese EFL learners of two generations under different educational policies and social atmospheres narrate their English learning experiences and exert LLA differently? Narrative and interview…

This study explores six Vietnamese, English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers' reflections on their experiences of English language learning during the early 1980s to the late 1990s. Data collected in narrative interviews with the participating teachers revealed a wide range of issues that arose during their EFL learning, central to which was…

This study discusses the possibility of e-portfolio as a central component of assessment practice in the traditionally exam-oriented context of China's tertiary education. The aim was to listen to learners, and provide them with a voice to analyse their perception of the potential advantages and challenges of introducing a learning-focused…

This study operationalizes Ruiz's language orientations framework (1984) and builds on his later work (e.g., 1997, 2008) by examining the ways in which local language policies influence the learning experiences of 12 multilingual youth and the teaching experiences of four of their classroom teachers. Using ethnographic and qualitative research…

The teaching ability is the key factor to decide the quality of teaching. How to train and improve the teaching ability of teachers has become a widespread concern of experts and scholars in the field of education and linguistics. The research investigates the status of students' practical teaching ability in the higher vocational college,…

This study investigates the identity and interculturality development of English-language teaching assistants through their perceptions of their experiences living and working in France. The study is framed using Bourdieu's (1979, 2000) notions of habitus and cultural capital, and draws from Byram's (2000) "intercultural mediator" and…