The direction of university courses is often guided by the results of traditional Likert scale student evaluations. Most of these focus on instructors' characteristics and frequently do not provide useful insights into students' learning preferences or feedback regarding specific activities and projects in the courses. This study, carried out in a…

In Europe there is a growing concern among educators and policy makers that students are not well-prepared to start a Master programme. This study draws on longitudinal research conducted at four universities in the Netherlands and a follow-up exploratory purposively chosen from one of the study sites. In Study 1, differences in academic…

In 2011, Oklahoma City University (OCU) opened its Community English School. This school implemented a project-based curriculum that was designed to accommodate English language learners from various proficiency levels and with varying amounts of time to invest in learning a new language. The school was staffed completely by students in OCU's MA…

Insofar as effective instruction is contingent upon the degree to which it is tailored to learner understandings in situ, developing a firmer grasp of how understanding-checks work in the reality of the classroom is integral to educators' knowledge of teacher practices and, ultimately, their ability to implement effective teacher training. The…

Teachers' responses to language classroom incidents depend on many factors, including the extent of their teaching experience. The question of how much influence teaching experience carries is important given that pre-service teachers have had limited opportunities to respond to day-to-day incidents that arise in classrooms. This paper reports on…

The framework of genre systems (Bazerman, 1994; Bhatia, 2004; Swales, 2004) offers an opportunity to illuminate the ways in which students enculturate into their disciplinary cultures (Berkenkotter & Huckin, 1995). To explore the ways in which genre chains are constructed through engagement in specific tasks, this study investigates two…

Studies have repeatedly shown that English language learners (ELLs) in elementary and secondary schools are frustrated because the school system is failing to support them in achieving their goals of acquiring English and obtaining postsecondary education. Teachers of ELLs often tell students to stop speaking their native languages, require…

The paper investigates how a student on a master's-level teacher education course for English language teachers goes about constructing her grammar knowledge. The learner is a novice teacher with English as a foreign language. Learner diary, interview, and group interaction data were analysed thematically, revealing that she made relatively few,…

This paper reports the results of a survey of California TESOL educators about issues related to nonnative English-speaking teachers (NNESTs). A good deal of research suggests that NNESTs are as effective, if not more so, than native English-speaking teachers (NESTs) and that their treatment in today's work world should be reconsidered; in…

The seminar, organised by Jane Woodin, Gibson Ferguson, Valerie Hobbs and Lesley Walker (School of Modern Languages & Linguistics and School of English, University of Sheffield), aimed to bring together those working in intercultural communication (IC) pedagogy largely--though not exclusively--in the higher education sector. It drew…

Preparing school administrators to support effective instruction of English language learners (ELLs) is an important dimension of today's school leadership programs, yet often difficult to enact. This paper reports a comprehensive needs analysis of a school leadership advanced certificate program carried out by Teaching English to Speakers of…

This paper explores the perceptions of Iraqi students of three different English Programs (a general English for academic purposes program, a pre-enrolment English program and the English component of a disciplinary bridging program) at an Australian University as reflected in their language learning narratives. It focuses specifically on the…

Few studies have focused on the identity formation of non-native English speaking teachers (NNESTs) as legitimate speakers and teachers of English. Drawing on Norton's (2000) poststructuralist theory of identity as a process of struggling and changing, this study examined whether and how Asian international students studying for a Masters in…

Within discourses of language endangerment, life stages such as child language acquisition, adolescent language shift, and the death of community elders figure prominently, but what of the role of other, intermediate life stages during adulthood and professional life in the course of language obsolescence or revitalization? Drawing from long-term…

This microethnographic case study discusses the effects of translating and revising documents for an English-medium master of science in engineering programme in terms of workload and value for English for Specific Purposes (ESP) teacher development, integration, and enculturation. During the changeover from the diploma to bachelor-master…