Describes the current nature of the English education(EE)/rhetoric and composition (RC) split (as evidenced in two discussion threads on two different listservs). Notes that many listserv participants fell into the trap of labeling EE faculty as practitioners and RC faculty as theorists. Suggests ways that this gap might be narrowed to allow for…

Investigates a preemptive focus on form, occasions when either the teacher or a student chose to make a specific form the topic of discourse. Found that in 12 hours of meaning-focused instruction, there were as many preemptive focus-on-form episodes (FFEs) as reactive FFEs (i.e., corrective feedback). (Author/VWL)

We present a case study of two students engaged in an investigation of number theory concepts in the computer environment, "Geoboard". The two students struggle with significant problems to communicate mathematics, and the computer plays a vital role in helping them overcome these difficulties. In fact, the students constantly use the screen…

Many teacher educators today will find little difficulty in completing this cloze--but Bob Dylan's understanding of the outsider may not be one that we share in terms of our own experience as teacher educators. Our concern in this paper is to suggest that such an understanding may also be one that we do not often concern ourselves with on behalf…

This article provides an empirically based perspective on the contribution of conversation analysis (CA) and sociocultural theory to our understanding of learners' second language (L2) practices within what we call a strong socio-interactionist perspective. It explores the interactive (re)configuration of tasks in French second language…

The alternation of Tagalog and English in informal discourse is a feature of the linguistic repertoire of educated, middle- and upper-class Filipinos. This paper describes the linguistic structure and sociolinguistic functions of Tagalog-English code switching (Taglish) as provided by various researchers through the years. It shows that the…

This article is republished from "The Canadian Modern Language Review," 60, 4, pp. 501-526. It is published as an article exchange between the "MLJ" and the "CMLR." The articles for the exchange were selected by committees from the Editorial Board of each journal according to the following criteria: articles of…

When mature students enter higher education they bring with them a wealth of knowledge and experience gained in their lives outside of education. A majority of higher education institutions in the UK and elsewhere around the world have now set up systems for recognizing and accrediting such learning. However the processes of assessing learning…

Three sets of meta-analyses examined gender effects on children's language use. Each set of analyses considered an aspect of speech that is considered to be gender typed: talkativeness, affiliative speech, and assertive speech. Statistically significant average effect sizes were obtained with all three language constructs. On average, girls were…

Early views considered computer-mediated discussions (CMDs) to be ideal forums for fostering dialogue because women and other marginalized groups could be equal participants. However, such optimistic views have been tempered by research that found CMD to be dominated by a few individuals, often men, and discourse that is sometimes abusive. The…

Tools for measuring cognitive engagement within online groups have been concerned only with measuring an individual participant's cognitive engagement, without any concern for measuring cognitive engagement within groups. There remains a serious need for a scheme that measures cognitive engagement of groups and the validation of such a scheme…

Research on student responses to Critical Pedagogy frequently highlights their opposition to transformational agendas. This paper focuses on student opposition at a predominantly 'white' South African university to materials that represent the apartheid past. Engaging with the imperatives of transformation characterizing post-apartheid Higher…

Discourse regarding student perceptions of their communication competence was collected from students in geographically diverse university systems in the U.S. These student discourses were analyzed for patterns that revealed shared topics, ideas, and values regarding communication competence in a variety of situations. Three characteristics of…

Concern over students deemed "at-risk" constructs youth as deficient and deviant without considering the experiences of youth themselves. My interest in "at-risk" grows out of my previous work with youth, in various drama education contexts and the fact that youth have told me they found the label offensive. My research…

This article examines the didactic suitability of introducing models at an intermediate (i.e. mesoscopic) scale in teaching certain subjects, at an early stage. The design and evaluation of two short sequences based on this rationale will be outlined: one bears on propulsion by solid friction, the other on fluid statics in the presence of gravity.…