Educators have raised awareness of the importance of meaning in second language instruction over the last decades. However, second language (L2) education has not been as meaningful as researchers might have hoped. Drawing on Hanauer's meaningful literacy, this qualitative research examines Korean students' awareness of the English language…

This paper outlines the context in which Language Awareness (LA) research is currently situated and where it might be going. The starting point is Eric Hawkins's vision (40 years ago) of LA as a bridge between school subjects and, in wider society, between people of different backgrounds and languages. Although considerable progress has been made…

The present study evaluated the effects of explicit instruction on advanced French second language (L2) learners' (n = 18) contextually appropriate use of two stylistic variables (/l/ deletion vs. retention and "ne" deletion vs. retention) using two different task types. A planned and unplanned oral task was used to assess students'…

Research on textual enhancement (TE) has given rise to several factors that may play a role in generating learners' noticing of target forms, one of which pertains to the nature of the target form(s). In particular, results have suggested that learners are more likely to notice more meaning-bearing forms than less meaning-bearing forms.…

Numerous second language acquisition (SLA) researchers have tried to define grammatical difficulty in second and foreign language acquisition--often as part of an attempt to relate the efficacy of different types of instruction to the degree of difficulty of grammatical structures. The resulting proliferation of definitions and the lack of a…

Most research on language awareness in a second language (L2) has been carried out with adult learners. This research presents data showing that pedagogical techniques can be devised enabling children as young as 8 to develop metalinguistic awareness of their emerging L2 system. Building on existing work by Canadian researchers, this…

Argues that in the initial stages of learning a new form in a foreign language and its associated functions, communicative needs and learning needs are fundamentally opposed. Suggests that what is needed is an orientation to language that is based on prior familiarity with specific forms and meaning that can be used in discourse as anchors to…

This paper provides an introduction to teacher language awareness (TLA) and a personal reconceptualisation of the relationship between TLA and other dimensions of teacher knowledge, revisiting issues discussed in Andrews (2001). In the first part of the paper, knowledge of subject matter is identified as the core of TLA. Given the increased…

Discusses recent trends in the language awareness (LA) movement among teachers and researchers: (1) concern with process instead of product; (2) the role and value of translation; (3) the role of teachers; (4) relationships between learning and thinking; (5) ways of developing LA among learners; and (6) the importance of teacher education in…

This paper considers initial findings of a research study examining the strategic behavior of nonnative speakers of English when they are faced with situations requiring pragmatic competence in a second language. The development of first-language pragmatic competence is described then the acquisition of pragmatic competence by adult…