The present study, framed from a critical and transformative approach to teacher education, aims to investigate whether language portraits (Prasad, 2010)--the mapping of one's language and cultural make-up on a body template--can help improve student teachers' self-understanding about language and identities and can foster critical reflection…

Intended for administrators and policymakers as well as teachers, this digest explores the nature of vocabulary and its implications for classroom instruction. After defining vocabulary and discussing some of the sources of English vocabulary, the digest examines how children's vocabularies develop. It then discusses the role of vocabulary…

Discovering pleasure in words should begin at a young age. But the discovery can continue among college students if oral communication courses offer parallels to the art and music appreciation courses which are part of most collegiate curricula. Some class activities which can enlarge appreciation of oral language are: (1) students may be assigned…

To help students practice and manipulate a newly learned language, games that help the teacher create contexts in which the language is useful and meaningful are presented in this book. The introduction provides answers to questions teachers may have--including why and for whom games are useful--and also offers practical pointers for explaining…