Feedback penetrates many walks of our lives, and its importance in L2 teaching and assessment is well recognised. However, while corrective feedback and writing feedback have been the focus of much L2 research and classroom practice, there seems relatively little attention to feedback on spoken interactional skills. Concomitantly, translating…

Young learners' use of instructional games in foreign language learning is not yet well understood. Using games that were part of the learning tools for an online assessment, Jido-Eiken, a standardized English proficiency test for young learners in Japan, we examined young learners' game-playing behaviours and the relationship of these behaviours…

Negotiation of language form is thought to engage learning processes by helping learners to notice gaps in their developing L2 and find target-like ways of filling them. Self-transcription, where learners work together to find language errors in recordings of their own oral output, is an awareness raising exercise that encourages such negotiation.…

This article uncovers the complexities and contradictions inherent in making decisions about L1 use in the English language classroom. Through an analysis of data from classrooms in a Cypriot context and from interviews with Cypriot teachers, a number of functions for L1 use are identified, as are the teachers' rationales for using L1 for…

Large corpora such as the British National Corpus and the COBUILD Corpus and Collocations Sampler are now accessible, free of charge, online and can be usefully incorporated into a process writing approach to help develop students' writing skills. This article aims to familiarize readers with these resources and to show how they can be usefully…

Examined code-mixing, a little-known technique used in teaching vocabulary. Found that using code-mixing to introduce new vocabulary can be an efficient and effective method. Discusses procedures and cognitive processes involved in vocabulary learning and explains the use of code mixing to introduce vocabulary. (Author/VWL)

An interview discusses future plans for the Centre of English as an International Language (University of Cambridge, England), the relationship of cognitive science to second language acquisition and to the role of research in applied linguistics in Great Britain, and the relevance of applied linguistics for teachers of English as a Foreign or…

Looks at how the theory of language-learning strategies (LLS), as used by speakers of other languages, has developed alongside other theories of language teaching and learning, and at the place of LLS in the field of contemporary eclectic language teaching and learning. Focuses on one aspect of LLS in practice by reporting on a study conducted…

Csikszentmihaly's (1997) concept of flow describes a mental state resulting from peak experiences in which the level of challenge is high, but manageable given a person's skills. Because flow occurs at peak moments, these moments can motivate teachers, possibly shaping their classroom practices and giving them insight into their teaching beliefs.…

Suggestions are offered for improving English-as-a-Foreign-Language literary competence through intervention at the procedural level. The suggestions are based on the data that the reading of a literary text can be seen as a form of information processing, and on a consideration of the thought processes involved in the understanding of a literary…

Teachers of writing (native or second language) should structure their classes in ways that will help students expand their repertoire of strategies for rewriting compositions. (Author/CB)

The foreign language teaching process depends on making various choices regarding materials, approaches, and activities. This decision-making process is analyzed, the needs behind it examined, and a decision hierarchy developed. A model is suggested for teacher education that incorporates this hierarchy into preservice, inservice, and graduate…

Focus in recent times on realistic pedagogy implies that we can no longer depend on a transmission model of training, either for teachers or learners. We need to develop strategies that will help teachers and learners to be co-participators in the learning process. Mental modelling is one technique suggested in this article. It is a technique…

Success in transaction and interaction in the foreign language classroom depends on teachers and students knowing the parts they have to play and how they relate to those that others have in learning encounters. Various roles of teachers and learners are defined. (CB)

One of the most controversial issues in foreign language (FL) teaching is the age at which language learning should start. Nowadays it is recognized that in second language contexts maturational constraints make an early start advisable, but there is still disagreement regarding the problem of when to start or the best way to learn in foreign…