With its focus on simplification universals, developmental orders, teachability, and functional-grammatical bases for acquisition, the well-known research on German (L2) language acquisition has contributed much to SLA research in general. At the same time, sociolinguistic investigations focus squarely on the difficult social conditions that…

This study analyzed the implementation of a pre-writing activity that was designed to address L2 student writers' tendency to focus on grammatical accuracy to the exclusion of content and structure. The participants, students in a university-level Spanish composition course, were given a rubric with which to evaluate three previously written…

This paper reviews studies that have contrasted the effectiveness of structured-input instruction with output-based instruction. It then presents results from a study comparing the relative effects of structured-input and output-based instruction on students' ability to comprehend and produce direct object pronouns in second language French. Three…

This study investigates the effects of receptive and productive vocabulary learning on word knowledge. Japanese students studying English as a foreign language learned target words in three glossed sentences and in a sentence production task in two experiments. Five aspects of vocabulary knowledge--orthography, syntax, association, grammatical…

In this paper, I argue for a response to the needs of linguistically and culturally diverse students that is both high challenge and high support. In elaborating this argument I draw on an English literature programme that was designed for a year 7 boys' class (the first year of high school) in an Australian public school. The students in the…

This article analyzes the self-correction of spelling by learners of intermediate Japanese. Participants in this study consisted of 20 students with "kanji" (Chinese characters) background and 43 without. This study investigates (1) types of spelling errors made; (2) the success rate of corrections made when codes for types of errors…

The project reported in this paper aims to test the concept of "learner developmental readiness" and its pedagogic effectiveness in the teaching of foreign language grammar. It focuses on the teaching of English as a second language (ESL) in a formal classroom context. The aim is to ascertain whether a specific teaching order based on…

English has become the "lingua franca" of international business and management and is the preferred means of communication in intercultural and international encounters. In this paper it is shown that both the spread of the English language and the increasing dominance of a management discourse are based on a series of tacit assumptions and…

The use of pair and small group activities in the second language (L2) classroom has been supported by both theoretical and pedagogical arguments. However, L2 researchers and practitioners have expressed concerns about their use in some instructional contexts. This small-scale study explored instructors' and learners' perceptions about the use of…

Over the years, Ms. Lane's third grade mathematics classroom had become increasingly diverse. Challenged by the growing population of English Language Learners (ELL) and her need to change her teaching practice to meet their needs, Ms. Lane selected to study how best to teach one of her greatest challenges, Ana, a Latino ELL who also had a…

In the author's previous teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) experience, he had found that Chinese university students were overdependent on teachers in EFL learning. Drawing on research on language learning strategies, he used metacognition training (MT) as a form of classroom intervention to promote learner autonomy. This article…

In this article, I discuss how the administrators and local teachers in a Turkish university English language centre perceive others in the institution. I present interview data to illustrate processes of "Othering", whereby a group constructs a shared, Us-Them representation of another group. The data show that administrators and local…

This article discusses the results of a survey conducted to explore how students and host teachers perceive the strengths of nonnative-English-speaking (NNES) teacher trainees based on their classroom practice. Responding to a questionnaire evaluating the NNES ESL teacher trainees in their classrooms, host teachers named the following as their…

This article reports on a study investigating English language teaching (ELT) practices in secondary-level classrooms in China. A sample of 252 secondary school graduates from different parts of the country completed a questionnaire on various instructional practices. Analyses of the data revealed that whereas classroom instruction in…

This overview delineates the direction of pedagogical developments since the 25th anniversary issue of "TESOL Quarterly." Three tendencies characterize our professional practice: (a) a continuation along the earlier lines of progression (i.e., in opening up the classroom to learning opportunities, integrating skills, and teaching for specific…