Searching for practical ways to improve students' English language skills is a real concern for all English teachers. There is a consensus among ELT practitioners regarding the significance of reading for learning new languages, since reading gives depth to language learning (Stern, 2001). Thus, teachers are obligated to provide their students…

Through recent educational initiatives that incorporate native English speakers (NESs) in achieving English proficiency, Colombia has seen an increase in NESs working as teachers or teaching assistants. This interpretive study uses qualitative methods to understand how NESs stimulate intercultural exchanges and awareness between Colombians and…

This article reports an investigative study on the target language use in and outside business English classrooms for non-English major undergraduates in a Chinese university context. The aims of the study are to identify the actual situation of target language use in business English teaching and to suggest ways for improvements. The study uses…

Many Christian universities in Korea are pursuing the globalization of Christian higher education to promote maximization of institutional competition, improvement of students' English skills, and enhancement of professors' research development through English Medium Instruction (EMI). EMI's flaws in application are not at all uncommon, as many of…

This study investigates how five non-heritage language learners manage themselves in a heritage learner dominant classroom. It looks at mainly the interactions among the students from a sociocultural perspective in terms of their attitude, socialization, and using strategies. The results indicate that most of subject students struggle but…

This study examines a Chinese language programme in an Ivy League institution through the lens of Tracking to re-conceptualise the achievement gap between Chinese heritage language learners (CHLLs) and non-heritage language learners. Like most prestigious universities in the U.S., Chinese language learners in this case study are put on one of two…

Since 2000, Ethiopia has been working to come out of social crises, modernise itself and achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Although provided with billions of dollars by the West and their international agents, little has been changed and the crises seem never to abate, especially in the educational system. This study, thus, critically…

In this inquiry, I examine the cross educational experiences of ten Arab undergraduate students in two English-language universities in Montreal. Participants were from Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco and have been in Canada for three to seven years. Classic qualitative methodological tools of in-depth interviews, participant observation and…

This paper explores the influence of Korean ethnic churches on the maintenance of heritage language (HL) and culture among Korean-Canadian students. The ethnographic and qualitative study on which it is based involved participant observation over a 4-month period, group discussions, interviews, and a questionnaire. Participants were 15 immigrant…

Humorous communication is extremely complex in both its forms and functions (e.g. Norrick, 1993; 2003). Much of the previous work that has put forth suggestions for incorporating humor into the language classroom (e.g. Trachtenberg, 1979; Deneire, 1995; Schmitz, 2002) has not examined these complexities in the detail necessary for the target…

Even though English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) courses constitute a significant part of the Iranian university curriculum, curriculum developers have generally developed the programs based on intuition. This study assessed the present and target situation academic language needs of undergraduate students of computer engineering. To this…

The purpose of this research is to examine the detailed components of Japanese students' English speaking ability in terms of communicative competence by using an oral proficiency test based on Bachman's Communicative Language Ability model (included in an appendix). Eighty college students were tested on four tasks--speech making, visual material…

During the 1994-1995 school year, the town of Sierre/Siders implemented and evaluated the first bilingual kindergarten class in the Valais canton of Switzerland. The following year the towns of Sion/Sitten and Monthey in the same canton also launched bilingual education classes. In these bilingual classes German is introduced as a second language…

In the past decade over 30,000 young college graduates from overseas have been employed in Japan by the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program (JET). The stated goals of the program are to enhance foreign language education, to internationalize the country's viewpoint, and to promote mutual understanding between Japan and other countries. This study…