Utilizing the framework of educational linguistics, we investigate ways to foster greater awareness of, and facility with, academic English for educators and students across disciplines by maximizing the popularity of language-related software packages, applications and websites, those already commonly found in and out of the classroom. Our work…

Students feel more comfortable in a new language when they understand its jokes. And when the jokes are puns, they build metalinguistic awareness. This article describes four categories of English puns--soundalike puns, lookalike puns, close-sounding puns, and texting puns--and suggests how they can be incorporated into English language…

Collocation is an aspect of language generally considered arbitrary by nature and problematic to L2 learners who need collocational competence for effective communication. This study attempts, from the perspective of L2 learners, to have a deeper understanding of collocational use and some of the problems involved, by adopting a task based…

New thinking is needed in the field of English language teaching as the Bullock Committee's report has shown. This article advances the idea that something could be learned from the approaches adopted by teachers of English as a foreign language. (Editor)

Phonological rules based on "stress-terminal pattern" (the principle that a phonological phrase has one primary stress and one terminal juncture requiring a mark of punctuation) can be used to improve punctuation in composition. These rules require that the writer be able to speak sentences at a normal pace with intonation appropriate to the…

Presents several high school teachers' suggestions on how to encourage variety in students' sentence patterns. (MM)

IT IS URGED THAT THE TEACHER BE FAMILIAR WITH THE LANGUAGE PATTERNS OF HIS PUPILS. A CASE IS CITED IN WHICH A TEACHER ATTEMPTED TO TEACH ROMANTIC POETRY TO A CLASS OF TEENAGERS. THEY RESPONDED WITH BOREDOM. A POEM BY LANGSTON HUGHES ENTITLED, "MOTTO," EXPRESSED IN "JIVE" LANGUAGE WAS INTRODUCED TO THE SAME CLASS AND IMMEDIATELY…

A technique for decreasing interference between black dialect features and the hearing and production of standard English is described. (JH)

The creative, purposeful departures from standard English used by advertisers are a worthwhile object of study in English classes. (JH)

Describes the use of teaching approaches of English for special purposes (particularly recognition and rhetorical devices) for teaching reading and writing to native speakers. (HOD)

Literary artists manipulate language. If educators could develop in their students the same sense that language is manipulable, they could help them to better appreciate literature. Emily Dickinson's poem "I Like to See It Lap the Miles" could be approached by changing it on several levels--graphics, phonics, syntax, and semantics--and…

Because of the tendency to reject Black English speakers, perhaps as an excuse for maintaining social and racial prejudices, teachers should understand that nonstandard dialects result from geographical and/or cultural isolation and conflict (as in Applachian English), and from linguistic conflict (as in Chicano English). The language of many…