This study analyses teacher-led clarification sequences in a university second language classroom setting from a conversation-analytic perspective. In the literature, there are many studies of clarification requests, but the focus is on individual categories and quantification. No previous study has examined clarification, as reconceptualised in…

This article addresses the questions: why is the development of conversational competence important within higher education? And how might this goal be pursued? We offer answers that may aid a broad range of stakeholders (language learners, course designers, lecturers, language development managers, and policy makers) in thinking through these…

Despite the increasing volume of studies on classroom language use research, scant attention has been paid to the relationship between learners' attitudes towards classroom language choice and classroom variables that they perceive to motivate their target language learning. This study examines this issue with Korean undergraduate English as a…

The paper describes development of the educational online web communication platform for teaching and learning foreign languages. The main objective was to develop a web application for teaching foreigners to understand casual fluent speech. The system is based on the time bank principle, allowing users to teach others their native language along…

Communicative Language Teaching, popularly known as CLT, has become a newly adopted methodology in the teaching and learning context of Bangladesh. This methodology, since the initiation, has encountered and is still encountering a number of hurdles that need to be dealt with best care and feasible strategy. Of all methods, most of the educational…

This is an English communication instruction system designed to teach children basic, easy to remember conversation strategies without the use of a textbook or to serve as a supplement learning system to a textbook. This English communication training method provides learners with concrete language patterns, a broad spectrum of vocabulary and…

Foreign language (FL) teachers and students may have very similar or disparate notions of effective teaching, and the intersection of the two sets of beliefs has ramifications for language learning and the effectiveness of instruction. Horwitz (1990), Kern (1995), and Schulz (1996) have argued that mismatches between FL students' and teachers'…

Describes and gives examples of "chatter chain," a method of teaching pupils to develop their French oral skills from a single question and answer that lead to a short conversation. This method combines the main linguistic structures to be learned with enought new grammar to allow a fair degree of pupil choice. (SED)

One of the current approaches to teaching second languages is the communicative approach. To improve the use of this approach in Shimane, Japan, it is necessary to discover the extent to which it is being used and what is hindering its use. This study examined the situation by asking native and non-native English postsecondary instructors to…

Issues regarding the development of student's speaking skills and English as a second language (ESL) techniques designed to improve the teaching of conversation are described. Ten true and false assumptions about the teaching of conversation are considered: (1) everyone enjoys talking and participating in class discussion; (2) discussion topics in…

This paper describes a formal communication game which requires the students to process other players' utterances for implicit meaning before responding. The game can be adapted for content and difficulty level. Students choose between two alternatives on dimensions such as structure and style. Sample games are included. (SW)

In order to ensure personal involvement in and eagerness for verbal communication, the German intermediate conversational course at Clemson University centers on love, marriage, and family life. Student proficiency in German improves, and the course generates enthusiasm as well as self-awareness and awareness of others. (Author/SW)

Presents a language teaching method designed to increase communicative competence through an application of speech act theory and the use of dialogs and the source language. (AM)

Topics for conversation courses include conversational rules and structure, conversational strategies, functions and meaning in conversation, and social and cultural contexts. The direct teaching of conversational skills involves adding specific language input, increasing the role of consciousness raising, and sequencing communicative tasks…

Socio-drama can be used to develop communication skills for English as a second language students. Students produce new sentences by participating in several enactments, and language use must be restructured according to the social context. Social interaction, a prerequisite for communication, is also promoted. (SW)