Foreign language education research has consistently acknowledged that students not only possess an array of "identities" beyond their role as mere learners, but also exercise "agency" making them active initiators and selectors of their learning actions. However, this conceptual understanding appears insufficiently reflected…

Many second language pedagogy experts recommend that curricular and instructional planning should begin with needs analysis. Few, however, recommend assessing students' strengths, and those that do seem not to consider learners' strengths to be integral to planning or instruction. Teacher preparation programs and materials that foreground needs…

This complex article has six subsections. Following a brief introduction, one team of three co-authors and three single authors present compact statements of their distinctive individual research perspectives on second language acquisition and teaching (SLA/T): Atkinson, Mejía-Laguna, and Ribeiro offer a sociocognitive perspective; Cappellini…

In this dissertation, I will present social-cognitive frameworks that support the use of mental imagery for possible self enhancement; and articulate and evaluate a pedagogical intervention designed for the foreign language class. This intervention will allow students to explore and develop prominent and vivid mental representations (self-schemas)…

This qualitative research examines the construction and negotiation of Japanese language teacher identities (LTIs) both inside and outside classrooms at public universities in the United States. In the past fifteen years, Japanese has become one of the most studied foreign languages at college level (Furman et al., 2010; Goldberg et al., 2015;…

Teachers' accents have become important in World Englishes (WE) and English as a lingua franca (ELF) studies. However, limited studies investigate how English teachers view their accents and how such perceptions affect their teaching practice. This study uses narrative inquiry to explore two Filipino English language teachers' perceptions and…

The present study sought to investigate the effect of implementing choice theory-based instruction and clinical supervision on EFL teachers' self-efficacy. Accordingly, a total of 30 Iranian EFL teachers were selected through nonrandom convenience sampling based on their willingness to participate in the study. At the outset, they responded to the…

This paper illustrates how spaces were created for children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds to emotionally engage in traditional Chinese literacy practices in a primary school in Sydney, Australia. The ethnographic data allow insight into how ordinary activities organised around character tracing and writing can…

The "boy turn" in research on gender and education has sought to understand how social practices and schooling contribute to the process of orientation to particular identities. This paper applies the theories of affect to explore the story of an underprivileged, low-achieving Samoan boy, as he engaged with learning Chinese in an…

This paper explores the relationship between language education and identity realization and the consequences of choosing either an Indigenous or a colonial language education approach. The focus is on the African postcolonial context; however, the arguments are also substantiated by examples from other parts of the world. I argue for a…

Despite the sustained focus towards inclusive language teaching and queer pedagogy in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and language education in recent years, employing an inclusive pedagogical practice and having language teaching resources that respect the gender identity among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer,…

Directed Motivational Currents (DMCs) are highly intense goal-directed motivational experiences that are characterised by establishing new routines and having positive emotions. The present study aimed to identify the factors that triggered the launch of DMCs among EFL learners. An interview protocol designed based on the core dimensions of the…

This dissertation is to explore the academic efficacy and relevance of two comparatively new technologies, video games and Virtual Reality (VR), how they relate to an older cultural phenomenon, theater, and how a discussion of both topics can result in a better understanding of how to supply students in the classroom with the chance to improve…

In this study, the authors investigated the attitudes of Japanese junior high school students towards studying English from the perspective of the Self-worth Theory. A total of 383 students aged 12 to 15 years participated in the qualitative study. Students were required to write three essays about how they would react under hypothetical…

Within the past few decades, notable contributions have been made in heritage language education research that continued to gain ground in language pedagogy and teaching practices (e.g., Davila, 2017; Valdes, 2000; Fishman, 2001; Kelleher, 2010; Polinsky & Kagan 2007). This dissertation is guided by translanguaging and social identity, two…