Research suggests that language-based activities should be an integral part of science teaching and learning and that these are even more important in minority-language contexts. The present cross-case study investigates how literacy is enacted in francophone science classrooms. Three francophone teachers were observed while they taught Grade 9…

This paper reports on an investigation into the beliefs and practices of experienced teachers in the USA, UK and France relating to the application of a model of intercultural communicative competence (ICC) to English language programmes. Broadly, "intercultural" approaches to language learning and teaching are strongly advocated in both the…

This study investigates the oral academic language used by English as a second language prepared teachers during content area instruction in five upper elementary classrooms in the United States. Using ethnographic and sociolinguistic perspectives the authors examine the oral, academic language exposure students received from their teachers during…

As our schools become increasingly diverse and the effects of immigration can be felt across the nation, some states have mandated that preservice teachers take endorsement courses that focus on teaching English Language Learners (ELLs) with the purpose of ensuring that teachers are able to meet ELLs' social and academic needs. A significant…

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…

After passing their university entry exam, students who wish to study a subject at one of the Turkish universities offering English-medium courses attend a one-year preparatory class. At the end of this, they need to pass an English language proficiency exam in order to be admitted to their chosen course of study. The existing curriculum for such…

In this article we report findings from research through the Center for Research on the Educational Achievement and Teaching of English Language Learners (CREATE), a National Research and Development Center. In our study we examined the efficacy of a model of instruction for English learners, the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP)…

This paper describes a study of ICT-related teacher development in the context of a national reform of College English teaching in China. The reform, in which emphasis was placed on use of information and communications technology (ICT) in classroom teaching and self-access learning, had challenged teachers of English as a foreign language to…

The dramatic growth in the number of children learning English as a second language in our country has led to a corresponding increase in the need to understand how teachers and schools can effectively teach children who are learning English as a second language. Many teachers report not feeling prepared to meet the needs of these children…

This article reviews research on working memory (WM) and its use in second language (L2) acquisition research. Recent developments in the model and issues surrounding the operationalization of the construct itself are presented, followed by a discussion of various methods of measuring WM. These methods include word and digit span tasks, reading,…

This article presents the outcomes of a biliteracy project designed, following an action-learning methodology, to supplement the district-mandated literacy programs with afterschool reading cooperatives where 100 families whose children were enrolled in an elementary school located in the Imperial Valley, California, and teachers dialogically read…

For over a decade, the Department of Education in Papua New Guinea (PNG) has adopted vernacular education as a way of ensuring that the educational experiences of children in schools draw on the cultural and linguistic knowledge they bring to the classroom. In PNG, there are many potential vernaculars--apart from the local languages, there are Tok…

In this column Manyak and Bauer summarize key research addressing the English vocabulary development of English learners (ELs) and distill implications for instructional practice. First, the authors discuss several key studies that demonstrate the limitation of many ELs' English vocabulary knowledge and the negative impact of this limitation on…

This article examines the phenomenon of graphic novels generally, and in particular, their utility in second-language contexts via the example of the graphic adaptation of Klaus Kordoris "Der erste Fruhling." This text lends itself especially to bridging thematic gaps in 20th-century German literature courses, as well as the "language/literature…

In this paper the author outlines a sample lesson that has been developed for second- or third-year German students using the short satirical vignette "Hurra, ich lebe in Deutschland" from the Turkish-German author Sinasi Dikmen's book of the same name. The lesson draws heavily from literary pragmatics, an area of applied linguistics which studies…