Emphasizes that traditional textbook explanations of the preterite and imperfect tend to focus on their aspectual differences. The article argues that a comprehensive analysis of the interaction of these two tenses in narration must go beyond aspect to include their respective temporal and discourse properties. (30 references) (Author/CK)

Examines imagined professional and linguistic communities available to preservice and inservice English-as-a-Second-Language and English-as-a-Foreign-Language teachers enrolled in one TESOL program. Discursive analysis of students' positioning in their linguistic autobiographies suggests that the traditional discourse of linguistic competence…

Examines various criteria that have been proposed for evaluating the increasing number of empirical studies carried out using qualitative research methods and demonstrates how such criteria may privilege certain forms of qualitative research while excluding others. Select existing evaluative criteria for qualitative research proposed by applied…

Demonstrates the need to bridge the gap between theoretical descriptions of discourse and type of language description that should be used in the English for academic purposes classroom in accordance with recent approaches to teaching a second language. Compares accounts of causal metatext from a sample of textbooks on academic writing to results…

Critically reviews selected research on the learning of English by Chinese speakers, focusing on the difficulties they experience and the variables determining their language learning success. Topics explored include phonology, morphology and syntax, typological transfer hypotheses, analysis of written and spoken discourse, and reading. A list of…

Reviews a study of the role and use of direction-giving in natural conversations of native speakers of American English. An overwhelming uniformity of structure in direction-giving is found. Learners of English as a second language need classroom materials that more accurately reflect the exchanges that occur naturally among native speakers of…

A native speaker-nonnative speaker conversational adjustment in the relative proportions of information type was examined for its relation to communicative success. Analyses indicated that an increase in the proportion of background detail correlated with comprehension problems for second-language learners. (22 references) (Author/VWL)

Applies a Vygotskyan perspective to explain the speech activity of 16 third-year high school learners of Spanish, focusing on their talk about task, talk about talk, and use of English during a problem-solving speaking task. Findings suggest that not all speech activity between second-language learners during classroom communicative tasks is…

Discusses potential problems and advantages of assessing grammatical competence from production data from interactional contexts. Argues that regardless of difficulties in assessing grammatical competence in interactional contexts, the types of interactions change with time, as the interlanguage grammar develops. (9 references) (Author/CK)

Examines the nature and structure of idioms and idiomatic language and offers suggestions for teaching them. Topics addressed include the relationship between idioms and erroneous language, idioms' appropriateness in context, proverbs, and metaphors. Some exercises are included. (Author/MSE)

Discusses second language acquisition and the use of multimedia that allows learners to be actively engaged in the language learning process, based on experiences at an Australian university teaching Chinese to English and Japanese students. Considers the phonological level, the semantic level, the syntactic level, and the discourse level. (LRW)

Proposes questions teachers can use to structure language activities that encourage students to analyze their own use of language. The questions arose from a workshop that focuses on assisting teachers and learners to explore language function together. Teachers can use these questions to exploit language in English as a Second or Other Language…

Considers the way moral meanings are created, Expressed, and negotiated in the actions and words of participants as they engage in a collaborative science activity. Offers an analysis of two excerpts from a video recording of a third grade classroom in which two students work with each other and with a visiting teacher on an experiment that…

Suggests that oral skills classes provide the ideal forum in which to address discourse issues, and that target-language discourse norms, particularly as they relate to another cultural belief system, must be taught explicitly. (Author/VWL)

This paper presents empirical results from an analysis of English and German conversational fillers produced by bilinguals. They reveal that even accomplished bilinguals do not display an overall native-like realization of conversational fillers in their second language (L2). Along with the findings of L2 studies showing that the comprehension and…