This article presents findings drawn from the development of an intervention designed to leverage Spanish to improve English reading comprehension. Five teachers and 18 middle school English language learners (ELLs) in 2 urban middle schools participated in the project over the course of an academic year. Analysis of policy documents, interviews,…

The theme for this year's College of Languages, Linguistics, and Literature at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa was "Language and Community," bringing together graduate students and faculty members from the Departments of East Asian Languages and Literatures (EALL), Indo-Pacific Languages and Literatures (IPLL), Languages and…

This article explores how class might be brought to the fore as an identity inscription in studies of second language learning, alongside other identity inscriptions such as gender, ethnicity and national identity, which have been the focus of rather more research. It begins by clarifying what is meant by class through a brief discussion of the…

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of fears concerning the status of English in Quebec. Unlike in the past, many now claim that it is francophones themselves who risk undermining the achievements of 30 years of successful status planning. The finger is pointed in particular at young francophones, accused of adopting an unfettered…

At a time when English has emerged as the dominant language of academic communication, there is a disturbing silence about the risks and problems attendant on this development and a failure to ask critical questions about its consequences. Who gains and who loses? What is lost in translation? What are the consequences of one way linguistic…

Singapore is placed in the Outer Circle of the Kachru's Three Circles Model, and has over the years developed an English which is uniquely Singaporean. This paper argues that in order to understand the ways in which Singapore English is developing its own standards and ways of speaking, a new model needs to be developed that takes culture, capital…

This article addresses the role of previously acquired languages in the acquisition of a third language (L3) in two experimental studies on object expression in Brazilian Portuguese (BP). Participants were English-speaking learners of BP as L3 with knowledge of Spanish as a second language (L2) and Spanish-speaking learners of BP with knowledge of…

This article investigates the construction and maintenance of ideologies regarding the legitimacy of English as the dominant language in the United States in interactions involving adult immigrant learners of English. As both the researcher and these students' English as second language (ESL) instructor, I am a participant in the ESL classroom and…

This article examines how changes in linguistic theory affect the debate between the fundamental difference hypothesis and the access-to-Universal Grammar (UG) approach to SLA. With a focus on subjacency (Chomsky, 1973), a principle of UG that places constraints on "wh"-movement and that has frequently been taken as a test case for verifying…

This paper argues that the "world Englishes paradigm" and English as a lingua franca (ELF) research, despite important differences, have much in common. Both share the pluricentric assumption that "English" belongs to all those who use it, and both are concerned with the sociolinguistic, socio-psychological, and applied linguistic implications of…

This author, a lecturer in the Education Program at the University of Washington (Bothell), relates an experience that dated back to an invitation to give a talk at the Gwangju International Center (GIC) in Korea in the Summer of 2011. Min spoke about culturally-embedded writing practices across nations and presented some practical strategies that…

This paper reports on a qualitative teacher inquiry conducted in a tertiary, English-as-a-foreign-language classroom in Taiwan. The purpose of the study was, first, to implement a poststructuralist view of critical literacy that focuses not only on texts but also on the practice of reading as constructed and contested, and second, to examine the…

Linguistic instrumentalism, which underscores the importance of English skills for work and for achieving individual economic success, has influenced language education policies and proliferated the language teaching and testing industry in Japan. Linguistic instrumentalism is linked to the notion of human capital (i.e., skills deemed necessary…

One of the strengths of narrative research in TESOL is its potential to provide insight into long-term language learning experiences that cannot be investigated in real time. Reliance on retrospection, however, brings two problems that are addressed in this article through the concept of "language learning careers". The first problem is…

This review article is a plea for the education community to reconsider the place of world languages teaching within the schools. With globalization, languages education should be one of the strategic goals of public as well as private education. The article reviews research on the best age level for learning a language, the assets of…