Although narratives have been widely used and investigated in the second/foreign language literature, studying narratives in authentic classroom contexts and their functions has received comparatively little attention. To fill this gap, the present study examines the narratives produced naturally by teachers within English-as-a-foreign-language…

The present study sought to assess and characterise the amount of first language use that two English as a foreign language teachers used to accomplish a number of functions in two classroom modes. An adapted version of the Functional Language Alternation Analysis of Teacher Talk scheme was used to analyse teacher talk in six English as a foreign…

This article uses a classroom experience to exemplify ways in which students as social beings learn English as a foreign language in Colombia and how the teacher uses "trans[cultura]linguación". This is a process of making meaning during English-learning tasks while comparing specific linguistic variations as students learn about both…

Sociocultural theory argues that an individual's mental, social, and material activity is mediated by cultural tools. One such tool is the language or discourse teachers use during whole class interaction in the second language classroom. The purpose of this study was to examine how a Colombian second language teacher mediated her ninth-grade…

The study aims to understand what factors may motivate and demotivate students with low emotional intelligence to participate in speaking activities during English class. Participants wrote an emotions journal to identify factors affecting student participation and were then interviewed at the end of the study period in order to elaborate on their…

All too often phatic communion is neglected in the English as a foreign language classroom or relegated to the level of formulaic language which merits little or no attention. In this article we argue that phatic communion plays an important role in establishing, developing and maintaining interpersonal relationships between teacher and learners…

The communicative approach in EFL education has generated a concern for the development of communication in the foreign language classroom within which the promotion of oral interaction is usually paramount. However, what constitutes authentic oral interaction is sometimes not clearly understood and some of the activities that take place in the…