The present study investigated six experienced English as a second language (ESL) teachers' metalinguistic knowledge of the English intonation system through analysis of their metalanguage. Participants' metalanguage related to intonation was collected while completing three tasks: (1) a semi-structured interview, (2) a simulated teaching…

Most second language (L2) learners are aware of the importance of vocabulary, and this awareness usually directs their attention to learning new words. By contrast, learners do not often recognise unfamiliar idioms if all the compositional parts look familiar to them such as "turn the corner" or "carry the day." College-level…

In educational psychology and other fields connected with education, the research technique known as phenomenography has long been used to investigate student perceptions of learning and how those perceptions impact what is learned. Although phenomenography has not yet been accepted as a mainstream methodological approach in second language…

This study draws on conversation analysis to explore the pedagogical possibility of using audiovisual depictions of authentic disagreement sequences from L2 interactions as sources for an awareness-raising activity in an English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom. Video excerpts of disagreement sequences collected from two ESL classes were used…

Language learners and teachers' cognition in respect of learning and teaching plays a critical role in mediating their actual behaviour and decisions in the process. This study investigates the vocabulary learning and teaching beliefs held by pre-service and in-service teachers in Hong Kong and on the Chinese mainland so that teacher education…

This study describes the grammar-related behaviours of three experienced non-native teachers of English working in state secondary schools in Catalonia and investigates what beliefs may explain, from the teachers' point of view, these behaviours; it also examines what factors in their turn determine these beliefs. The results uncover three…

This paper examines the out-of-class English language learning activities of student teachers in Hong Kong, using questionnaires, interviews and learner diaries. The study found that while many of the students devoted considerable time to studying and practising English outside the classroom, much of this time was spent on more receptive…

With the growing acknowledgement of the importance of pragmatic competence in second language (L2) learning, language researchers have identified the comprehension of speech acts as they occur in natural conversation as essential to communicative competence (e.g. Bardovi-Harlig, 2001; Thomas, 1983). Nonconventional indirect speech acts are formed…

Argues for the use of poetry reading in second language classrooms. Reviews literary and linguistic theories of poetry and synthesizes these theories within a psycholinguistic model of poetry reading, according to which the central aspect of poetry reading is the conscious negotiation of the formal structures of language for comprehension…