Using literature, more specifically poetry in English as F/L2 has grown over time. However, scholars disagree as to whether it makes any difference to language learning or what functions it serves. The purpose of this study is to examine what discourses poetry embodies, what identities it shapes, and whether it can confront dominant ideologies in…

Adopting a learning ecology perspective, this study examined sojourners' formal classroom learning and the interactions between their learning in the classroom and their learning in the community. Data for the study were collected from semi-structured interviews and classroom observations involving 14 sojourners learning Chinese as a second…

Curriculum material use is an agentive, reciprocal and innovative practice, involving multiple stakeholders such as teacher, students and assessments that mutually shape one another. While it is generally acknowledged that teachers' knowledge and skills deeply shape the way they use materials, little is known about how material use can possibly…

Current foreign language education policies advocate plurilingual approaches to learning and teaching languages and call into question the 'ideal native speaker' as the ultimate model. Observations within a teacher training context indicate that this ideal still holds considerable weight among pre-service teachers. A study was carried out with…

This paper reports on a longitudinal study that investigated how international students' personal network mediated their pragmatic choices during studying abroad in China. Data were collected over a year through different ways, including Study Abroad Network Questionnaire, role-plays, retrospective verbal reports, ethnographic interviews and…

Recent articles on the problems of 'locus of enunciation' have focused on research and publication as well as on theoretical development of the concept. It is an issue in teaching and learning too, and this is the focus of this article which argues that to reject teaching approaches in 'the South' because they come from 'the North' is, first,…

Policy guidelines in Sri Lanka prescribe how and for how long English should be taught as a second language in primary education but practices on the ground may deviate. Opportunities for teaching and learning and pedagogy are key aspects of the process of learning. Using a large-scale survey this paper addresses (i) how much time is allocated to…

This study investigated the agency of children, parents and teachers in a Serbian-English bilingual preschool. The focus was on uncovering the kind of agency each of these groups exercised in the process of language learning by examining the children's linguistic behaviour and the role that parents and teachers had in motivating children learning…

Multiliteracies pedagogy is an approach to literacy education emphasising the diverse ways in which people make meanings and communicate their understandings to others. Within this view of literacy teaching and learning, the construal and expression of meaning is considered a result of people engaging in various knowledge processes as they…

In striving for internationalisation, government and university policies in Catalonia promote the use of English in classrooms in two ways that often overlap: (1) as a lingua franca aiding the participation of international students and (2) through immersion approaches targeting local students. However, as the findings presented in this article…

Research on content and language integrated learning (CLIL) has expanded substantially in the last 10 years. While research interests have predominantly focused on language learning outcomes and the comparison between CLIL and English as a foreign language (EFL) students' competence in the foreign language, recent studies have called for the need…

Heritage learners comprise a substantial proportion of second language learners, including L2 Korean learners. Previous studies have shown that the vast majority of heritage language learners display weakness in orthographic accuracy. Due to their previous extended exposure to oral discourse and limited experience in written language, heritage…

This article presents results of a study on a weekend Chinese community school in a mid-Atlantic state that looks at parents' perceptions of the challenges the school faced in teaching Chinese to heritage versus non-heritage learners. Survey and qualitative interviews with parents show differences in their expectations regarding teacher…

Outlines key terms and complexities that surround the advocacy of teaching foreign language for intercultural communicative competence (ICC) in a foreign language to courses promoting the acquisition of ICC. Discusses criteria for selecting cultural content and culture-and-language learning tasks, as well as ways to scaffold the ICC learning…