Research in the areas of second language (L2) pragmatics and of conversational humor has increased in recent decades, resulting in a strong base of knowledge from which applied linguists can draw information for teaching purposes and undertake future research. Yet, whereas empirical findings in L2 pragmatics are beginning to find their way into…

Self-determination theorists (SDT) argue that the satisfaction of the need for relatedness is essential for growth and well-being. However, the current research has yet to account for the unique ways in which adolescent males engage in behaviors to fulfill their need for relatedness within their peer groups. This qualitative study investigates…

This paper examines the perceptions of Greek secondary education teachers on effectiveness in teaching. Through a structured questionnaire, 340 teachers reported their views on the tactics which are considered to contribute to effective teaching and on the behaviour and personal traits attributed to effective teachers. Descriptive and factor…

Over a 13-month period, the Schome Park Programme operated the first "closed" (i.e. protected) Teen Second Life project in Europe. The project organised diverse educational events that centred on use of a virtual world and an associated asynchronous forum and wiki. Students and staff together exploited the affordances of the environment…

Background: Physical education teacher behaviour has been a subject of study in physical education including physical education teacher education for 30 years. However, the research on teacher behaviour has tended to focus on direct teaching behaviour (DTB) to demonstrate the benefits of effective teaching, centred on a technical understanding of…

Much of what we think we know about the performance of humor relies on our intuitions about prosody (e.g., "it's all about timing"); however, this has never been empirically tested. Thus, the central question addressed in this article is whether speakers mark punch lines in jokes prosodically and, if so, how. To answer this question,…

Teacher emotional exhaustion or burnout is a problem for local pubic educators because many teachers do not stay in the profession long enough to become experienced in the classroom. The purpose of this study was to identify practices that assist teachers in overcoming emotional exhaustion related to their profession. Guided by resilience theory,…

In the current study, it was examined whether successful learning is related to using different types of media. We compared the comprehension of an economic concept in novices (N = 82) under three conditions: a Wikipedia article, a funny, and a serious YouTube video. The media were presented in English which is a foreign language to most of the…

Important to issues of writing instruction are the ways in which teachers, specifically those who teach in the discipline of language arts and English, understand and see themselves as writers. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how secondary English teachers positioned themselves and were positioned by others as writers through…

In the context of public debates on teacher quality, both media and education policy texts construct deficit discourses about teachers, discourses that work together to inform public, commonsense understandings of teacher quality. This paper explores the interrelationships between discourses on teachers constructed on television and in policies in…

Because of its potential for humor and drama, job interviewing is frequently portrayed on television. This article discusses how scenes from popular television series such as "Everybody Loves Raymond," "Friends," and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" can be used to teach effective job interview skills in business communication courses. Television…

Hopi Brian Honyouti's "clown" sculptures stem from his personal and political views and comment on commercialism, big business, greed, over indulgence, and irresponsible and sexual behavior. This essay explores the meaning of these carvings to Honyouti, to Hopiit, and to the buying public, as well as their relationship to "tithu," the carved…

Using rhetorical/relational goal theory as a guiding frame, we examined relationships between instructor misbehaviors (i.e., indolence, incompetence, and offensiveness) and the likelihood of students communicating antisocial behavioral alteration techniques (BATs). More specifically, the study focused on whether students' perceptions of instructor…

This article examines changes in the drug resistance strategies used by urban American Indian (UAI) middle school students during a pilot test of a substance use prevention curriculum designed specifically for UAI youth, "Living in 2 Worlds" (L2W). L2W teaches four drug resistance strategies (refuse, explain, avoid, leave [R-E-A-L]) in…

ScienceComics project originally involved a set of theatre performances that sought to highlight the importance of materials by exploring what happens when one uses the "wrong" material. As part of this early work, two plays were created that featured a young alien girl, called Selenia, who could change materials. In this article, the…