Scope and Method of Study. The purpose of this study was to assess students' perceptions of communications provided by faculty and peer leaders in relationship to both students' perceptions of their course motivation as well as their perceptions of the innovativeness of their final project in single and multidisciplinary capstone courses. The…

The quality of classroom interactions has typically been studied using aggregates of ratings over time. However, within-day ratings may contain important variability. This study investigated within-day variability using the NICHD Study of Early Childcare and Youth Development's observational data during grades 3 and 5. The first question examined…

This study tested two models of instructor credibility as a potential mediator of instructors' prosocial communication behaviors (e.g., confirmation, clarity, and nonverbal immediacy) and students' learning outcomes. Participants included 1,416 undergraduate students from four different institutions across the United States. Results of structural…

The main purpose of this article is to review studies that have investigated the effects of three types of planning (rehearsal, pre-task planning, and within-task planning) on the fluency, complexity, and accuracy of L2 performance. All three types of planning have been shown to have a beneficial effect on fluency but the results for complexity…

There have been a number of investigations into the extent to which teachers in the primary school interact within their classrooms with boys and girls and the results of these investigations have differed considerably, some showing boys receiving more interaction than girls and others showing no differences. The aim of this investigation was to…

This paper focuses on content-based and pedagogical instructors' use of cogenerative dialogues to improve instructional practice and to evaluate program effectiveness in a professional development program for high school chemistry teachers. We share our research findings from using cogenerative dialogues as an evaluative tool for general…

This paper examines the tensions created in a Greek Cypriot primary classroom between the legitimate variety of the school, Standard Modern Greek, and the home variety of the students, the Greek Cypriot Dialect. Ethnographic data are presented to indicate that language use in the classroom, contrary to what language policy-makers argue, is…

The general aim of this article is to discuss the application of Usage-Based Linguistics (UBL) to an investigation of developmental issues in second language acquisition (SLA). Particularly, the aim is to discuss the relevance for SLA of the UBL suggestion that language learning is item-based, going from formulas via low-scope patterns to fully…

This article explores the design and implementation of critical action research undertaken to encourage equal classroom participation. Building on a body of literature on critical action research and oral participation, the author reports her research project undertaken in a multi-lingual and multi-ethnic class in Japan to examine practices of how…

The assumption that foreign language learners experience a high level of anxiety mainly when faced with speaking activities implies that research should focus on those learners prone to anxiety over that skill. Despite not being widely investigated, foreign language writing anxiety also seems to be a concern for a large number of students. Drawing…

Research shows that active student participation facilitates learning. However, encouraging undergraduate college students to engage meaningfully in classroom discussion and to respond to questions, especially in larger classes, can often be frustrating for instructors (Weaver & Qi, 2005). Set against a focused review of the literature, the…

This discussion emphasizes the importance of collaborative learning methods to compensate for the legal restrictions placed on school districts by Arizona's anti-bilingual education law, Proposition 203. Grounded in Vygotsky's sociocultural theory of learning, peerlingual education is described as an invaluable resource based on the linguistic…

Metadiscourse is a new and interesting field of inquiry which is believed to play a vital role in organizing and producing persuasive writing, based on the norms and expectations of people involved. Metadiscourse embodies the idea that writing and speaking are more than just the communication of ideas and presentation of ideational meaning. Rather…

The communicative approach in EFL education has generated a concern for the development of communication in the foreign language classroom within which the promotion of oral interaction is usually paramount. However, what constitutes authentic oral interaction is sometimes not clearly understood and some of the activities that take place in the…

This study examines the social construction of proficiency and the discursive practices prevalent in linguistically diverse schools that afford or constrain participation in language learning communities. Drawing from discourse studies, positioning theory and a sociocultural framework, this study analyzed data from audio recordings and…