Although research indicates that deliberate practice is indispensable for achieving high levels of proficiency and expertise in a range of disparate fields, this type of practice has largely been overlooked in the second language acquisition literature. To bridge this gap, and advocating for a more intentional and goal-directed approach to second…

Focused on the role of school and district leaders, this brief is part of a series from the National Research and Development Center to Improve Education for Secondary English Learners that articulates concrete actions that teachers, leaders, parents, and policymakers can undertake to ensure that adolescent English Learners develop substantive and…

Positive psychology is a rapidly expanding subfield in psychology that has important implications for the field of second language acquisition (SLA). This paper introduces positive psychology to the study of language by describing its key tenets. The potential contributions of positive psychology are contextualized with reference to prior work,…

As stated by Valero-Garcés (2006, p. 38), the new scenario including public service providers and users who are not fluent in the language used by the former has opened up new ways of linguistic and cultural mediation in current multicultural and multilingual societies. As a consequence, there is an ever increasing need for translators and…

In this article, Vance Stevens describes how access to what he calls "star performer educators" as either up-­and­-coming in their field, or experienced and polished practitioners, have changed with access to the internet. They are clearly passionate about what they do, and what they do has become second nature. They touch hearts and…

This paper presents an e-collaboration project involving real-time videoconferencing exchanges between students from the University of Westminster and the Université Catholique de Lille. Students drew on diverse resources, including written quantitative data and first-hand qualitative data in French/English to complete weekly tasks. Follow-up work…

This article presents the development, rollout, and subsequent uptake of the Alberta Teachers of English as a Second Language (ATESL) document Best Practices for "Adult English as a Second Language (ESL)/Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) Programming" in the light of literature on teacher engagement with second-language…

This professional paper builds on the work of TESOL's issue briefs, "Implementing the Common Core State Standards for English Learners: The Changing Role of the ESL Teacher" (February 2013) and Overview of the Common Core State Standards Initiatives for ELLs (March, 2013). It discusses the shifting landscape surrounding the new Common…

More than an estimated 90 million adults in the United States lack the literacy skills needed for fully productive and secure lives. The effects of this shortfall are many: Adults with low literacy have lower rates of participation in the labor force and lower earnings when they do have jobs, for example. They are less able to understand and use…

In response to federal initiatives such as Race to the Top (RTTT), Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) flexibility waiver requests, and the Teacher Incentive Fund competition, states have made dramatic changes in their policies related to teacher evaluation during the past three years. Historically, teacher evaluation systems have been…

Ojibwemotaadidaa Omaa Gidakiiminaang (let's speak Ojibwe to one another here on our Earth) is an Ojibwe language immersion program funded by Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College (FDLTCC, Cloquet, MN) and with grants from the State of Minnesota. With a development team that included FDLTCC President Larry Anderson, among others, participants…

To help aspiring teachers better understand their English language learners, New England College invited a group of recently arrived students into a classroom of preservice teachers to share their insights about how teachers can best support them. The future teachers appreciated the students' suggestions about pairing them with a peer, checking in…

Despite research showing the broad impact that the study of foreign languages has on the cognitive development of young people, and despite the importance of language expertise for America's economic and geopolitical interests in the twenty-first century, the teaching of world languages has been marginalized within the American educational system…

Many foreign and second language teachers are reluctant about shifting from traditional language instruction to TBLT. Another challenge has been the use of ICT in the classroom, a problem addressed in previous Comenius projects. The ETALAGE project aimed to build on the achievements of such projects and to address these challenges, by collecting,…

Interdisciplinary projects offer a strategy for German programs to become more visible and valued in the university context. Freedom Without Walls at Chapman University offers a case study of a project that situates the German program within an institution's larger goals. When building a project, the German program should look first to existing…