In today's second language classrooms, students are often asked to work in pairs or small groups. Such collaboration can take place face-to-face, but now more often via computer mediated communication. This paper reports on a study which investigated the effect of the medium of communication on the nature of pair interaction. The study involved…

The self-report questionnaire has served as the primary tool for investigating language maintenance in hundreds of communities over the past 40 years. More recently, it has been employed to investigate language shift amongst first-generation communities where one of the most useful indicators of generational change is the reported pattern of…

The article presents a usage-based analysis of color attribution, i.e. the construal of the relation between color property and an entity to which it is attributed in painting descriptions. The study is based on the corpus of 100 catalog entries written for American art museums. It focuses on the two most frequent morpho-syntactic patterns in the…

Story problems either bring students to a screeching halt or send them into a frenzied search for numbers and operations. They cause greater anxiety, still, in English language learners. These problems are often the nemesis of many a math teacher. This author grappled with this challenge in the context of teaching a series of lessons on integers…

This paper discusses language usage patterns amongst Eastern European migrants living in the East Anglia region of Great Britain. It examines the relationship between individual speakers' language use and societal factors, with an emphasis of respondents' perceptions of ethnic, cultural and linguistic vitality. A linguistic vitality and language…

For youth who challenge the culturally fixed gender dichotomy through nonconventional gender expression, societal reaction can be harsh. Uncovering these youth voices as they pioneer new gender frontiers through pathways of language and social dialogue provides the focus for this manuscript. Drawing from discursive, narrative practices, we sat in…

In this study, framed within a sociocultural theory of mind, we explore the role of languaging in mediating between students' understanding of a grammatical concept and their written production of the forms related to that concept. The development of scientific concepts, in this case of the concept of voice in French, involves the use of language…

Student self-transcription can greatly enhance the power of tasks to promote language learning, for it allows students to re-examine their experience freed from the pressure of performing the task itself, so they can notice and reflect on the language used and encountered. This is a powerful step in language development because it allows for…

The purpose of this study was to examine the professionals' perspectives regarding characteristics of effective partnerships with parents. The sample involved 20 professionals representing the backgrounds of occupational therapists/physical therapists/speech-language pathologists, special education teachers, paraprofessionals, and health…

Issues of gender, race, sexual orientation, and intellectual disability are taboo among teens, as they are consumed with their own struggle for identity and often unable to view the struggles of those around them who may not fit into the social majority in the overwhelming ecosystem of high school peer groups. Some may argue that "gay" and…

This paper draws on the theory and method of free association in psychoanalysis to frame an investigation of the content, structure, and function of the thinking expressed in conversations about sexuality and sexual health. The investigation emerges from an ongoing three-year study of the way adolescents, teachers, and peer sex educators negotiate…

With its focus on the use of language forms in cultural context, the study of pragmatics can be a valuable component in a program that prepares students to learn both language and culture in study abroad. The goal of the present study is to propose a model for pragmatic instruction in study abroad that fosters both intercultural competence and…

As part of a research study on collaborative writing, this paper discusses defining and facilitating features that occur during face-to-face collaboration, based on the literature and research. The defining features are mutual interaction, negotiations, conflict, and shared expertise. Facilitating features include affective factors, use of L1,…

Cognitive flexibility theory posits that some tasks or cognitive activities resist oversimplification, a lens through which the present study is cast. High school writing tasks that promote complex thinking may also promote increased uptake of academic vocabulary. The study described in this article demonstrates how essential questions and other…

In a bilingual community, people often switch from one language to another in their daily conversations and the use of code-switching often reflects the social or cultural identities of the speakers. The switch to a particular language in the bilingual discourse can also be employed as an effective vehicle to signal ethnic identity. This paper…