This review of research on the learning, teaching, and assessment of L2 German may be particularly timely due to developments from within the profession as well as recent political changes which continue to have a strong bearing on the way L2 German is promoted, learned, taught and assessed. Far from representing an isolated field of research…

The authors believe that exposure to cultural diversity may force children (or even adults) to form new neural connections in the brain to be able to sufficiently interpret meaning in things to which they are not accustomed. Once formed, these new neural connections may be at one's permanent disposal to assist in a myriad of potential cognitive…

Postgraduates' English acquisition is an intriguing but complex process. A lot of factors have contributed to the outcome of a learner's acquisition, among them, motivation and strategy are playing a crucial role. Motivation is the driving force to encourage the learner to learn, while strategy being the techniques or devices for a learner to use…

Most teachers have seen the reactions students can have to tasks and activities that they do not find engaging: the glassy or rolling eyes, the unfocused behavior, and the cries of "Not again!" This article provides practical techniques that the author's students have helped him learn over the years to better "activate" materials and tasks in the…

Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) and L2 listening comprehension skill training are bound together for good. A neglected macroskill for decades, developing listening comprehension skill is now considered crucial for L2 acquisition. Thus this paper makes an attempt to offer latest information on processing theories and L2 listening…

In this paper I want to focus on the difficulty perceived by seventh grade students in connection to listening activities in the English class, at some public schools in San Juan, Argentina. This analysis will lead to the examination of contextual factors that might act as unforeseen constraints on the language learning situation. (Contains 5…

The Modern Language Association report and "Profession" issue from summer 2007 (Geisler et al., 2007) are highly indicative of the increasingly debated concerns in the profession surrounding (1) the traditional division of foreign language curriculum between "language" and "literature" and (2) the instruction of textual analysis (or practice of…

With a focus on educational provision the area of English as a second language (ESL), this paper takes stock of developments in the last 10 years since the inception of the Australian "Literacy for All" policy in 1998. A review of the issue is timely, not least because of the recent window of opportunity afforded by the first change of…

In 2006, the author returned to school after completing the Teaching Shakespeare Institute at the Folger Library inspired with new performance-based ideas for teaching the plays. The author began to wonder about using Shakespeare as a vehicle for investigating "rich and strange" language with English Language Learners (ELLs). The author began by…

Brazil's system of discourse intonation (DI) is critically appraised, and some shortcomings are described. Modifications to DI are suggested, the most important being to recognize that tones have meanings derived from two functions: firstly to indicate the distribution of knowledge between speaker and listener--the analysis of tone in yes/no…

Recent research meta-analyses on the literacy education of children who are English-language learners (ELLs) were reviewed. The author discusses instructional implications that (1) are strongly supported by research, (2) are likely to be true, given the research evidence, and (3) need more research before recommendations can be made. (Contains 1…

Corpus-based grammars, notably "Cambridge Grammar of English," give explicit information on the forms and use of native-speaker grammar, including spoken grammar. Native-speaker norms as a necessary goal in language teaching are contested by supporters of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF); however, this article argues for the inclusion of selected…

This paper analyses the comments of a group of learners on their participation in an English corner on the Chinese mainland. It highlights that the particular "English corner" concerned in this study has become a social community where the participants could find supportive peers and self-assertion opportunities. The learners'…

"Conversation," the social and socialising activity "par excellence," has undergone a profound semiotic and phenomenological transformation in the contemporary age. Broadly speaking, conversation used to be associated with speech and a shared context of situation in many linguistic approaches (e.g., conversation analysis), but…

This research project undertook a review and synthesis of previous research on the effectiveness of feedback for individual writing development. The work plan was divided into two main phases. First, we surveyed all available studies that have investigated the effectiveness of writing feedback, including both quantitative and qualitative research,…