The report details results of a research project to monitor and map the literacy development of three learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) studying in an Australian English program for adult migrants. The objective was to gain a longitudinal picture of their reading and writing development over a period of nine months. Five additional…

Reviews Bialystok's (1990a) analysis of communication strategy work and describes two studies in which products are interpreted within frameworks illuminating underlying processes of second language (L2) learning. Concludes that products, appropriately analyzed, can provide important insights into the processes of L2 learners. (73 references)…

Reviews factors influencing reversals of expectations for language-learning outcomes. This article touches on psychological and neurological data regarding individual differences in language-learning mechanisms and focuses on cross-linguistic psycholinguistic analysis that indicates that different target languages offer a wide variety of learning…

Examines strategies students use while performing a listening comprehension task and the relationship between strategy use and listening ability. Eighty-three students registered for first-, second-, third-, and fourth-semester Spanish participated. The first-semester students scored the highest and the second-semester students, the lowest on…

Examines the problems associated with interlanguage in French immersion and how teachers can use the writing process to help students develop the target language. It is suggested that language can be mediated through conferencing sessions, and in so doing, propel students into their zone of proximal development. (15 references) (Author/CK)

Classroom communication in the second-language class is examined from an ethnographic perspective, highlighting the role of students in helping each other learn. Turn-taking, patterns of addressing teacher and peers, and different kinds of interaction that promote learning: cooperative; didactic; competitive; theatrical; personalized. (MSE)

This case study of an international teaching assistant's experience with college teaching focuses on the process of becoming an effective instructor in the undergraduate classroom. A developmental model that emphasizes clarifying the student's individual linguistic, cultural, social, and professional goals is suggested, and implications for…

Sixty middle school students, half average-achieving and half with learning disabilities (LD), were assigned to either a positive or neutral mood induction condition prior to receiving instruction in elementary Hindi language (to control for effects of prior knowledge). Across a two-week period, the LD students in the positive condition performed…

A study investigated how young learners of English as a second language become both linguistically creative and capable of socializing in English through the use of prefabricated language (PL) (memorized chunks of sentences). Observations of four Japanese preschool children in two-way immersion programs suggested that PL acts as a scaffold for…

As a steady stream of recent papers indicates, ELT curriculum reform projects are not always as successful as they might be. One overall reason for this situation appears to be a failure to adequately take into account concepts and practices from the world of innovation management. This paper describes an attempt to contribute towards ameliorating…

The "teaching point" persists, and will no doubt persist further, but this article reviews decades of thinking to challenge it as prime unit of "planning" for language teaching and proposes instead the "learning opportunity" as a unit of "analysis" with major implications for planning. This proposal leads me to advocate practitioner research…

Despite improvements in educational indicators, such as enrolment, significant challenges remain with regard to the delivery of quality education in developing countries, particularly in rural and remote regions. In the attempt to find viable solutions to these challenges, much hope has been placed in new information and communication technologies…

An American Jewish woman learning Japanese in Japan examines the relationship between language, language learning, and personal identity. Autobiographical reflections are combined with entries from a diary and scholarly observations about the interrelationship of gender, race, culture, social class, historical experiences, and language learning.…

The developer of the two-cone model of second language teaching and learning outlines the original model and its concepts, and presents some further ideas concerning it. The model represents the native and second languages as two cones with pronunciation at the apex, morphology and syntax (grammar) at the center, and vocabulary around grammar and…

Theories of human cognition and language suggest that there is a gap between the phases of perception and the phases of production of language. Unfortunately, this is often forgotten in language teaching, so that beginners' courses too frequently contain simplified and non-authentic linguistic input to assure that output does not lag too far…