One of the main professional-development challenges social studies teachers face involves adjusting content and instruction to accommodate the surging population of English Language Learners (ELLs). Between the 1993-1994 and 2004-2005 school years, ELL school populations increased 68 percent to more than 5.1 million, compared to a 7.8 percent…

A number of recent studies, especially within the East Asian region, have chronicled the problems involved in successful implementation of the English language teaching component of large-scale, system-wide educational innovations. This paper reports on the findings of research into the implementation, in both general and ELT-related terms, of…

Proposes a content-oriented approach to teaching foreign languages in institution-wide language programs. Asserts that a separation of content and language in a skills-based model of teaching non-specialist language learners is neither university-adequate nor in the interest of successful language learning. The article further proposes that…

This article presents the process of recent curricular revision and material development in English at the national level in India in a limited way. Teachers' needs and wants, their participation in the development of materials, the dilemmas of teachers and their implications for classroom transactions are discussed from the experiences of one of…

An indispensable part of any curriculum design in an educational setting is the analysis of the needs of the learners involved in the context. The needs can be addressed from different perspectives. Among them, the learners' needs in terms of their perceptions toward what constitute learning/teaching and testing processes are of prominent values.…

Universities that lack significant racial or ethnic diversity present challenges to teaching multiculturalism, particularly in linguistics. This article presents ideas from a service-learning curriculum designed to teach university students about diversity through a community-based partnership to provide tutors in English as a second language…

Toastmasters is a widely recognized international club that aims to develop and enhance the art of public speaking by offering participants educational programmes and chances to speak before groups. This article reports on the integration of the Toastmasters approach to an EFL oral-communication class in Taiwan. As both the author of this study…

This paper provides an overview of the challenges in learning a signed language as a second language, in particular for hearing parents with deaf children, and details an action research process that led to the design of a new curriculum for teaching Australian Sign Language (Auslan) to the families of deaf children. The curriculum was developed…

Confronted with a world that is strikingly different from what it was just a decade ago, the United States faces rapidly shifting economic, political, and national security realities and challenges. To respond to these changes it is essential that our institutions of higher education graduate globally competent students. This article addresses…

The commerce faculty at the University of Cape Town (UCT) offers a 1-year, postgraduate management diploma that is regarded as a mini-MBA. It appeals to a wide variety of mainly English-as-second language (ESL) students. In the past, core course diploma lecturers in marketing, tourism and leisure, enterprise management and sport management…

Describes the new syllabus used for teaching English to secondary school students in Israel. (Author)

Looks at the role of learning counselor, which the teacher has to assume in a learner-centered approach to second language learning, and the responsibilities such a role demands. (16 references) (VWL)

Addresses a long-standing assumption that presenting new second language (L2) vocabulary in semantically grouped sets is an effective method of teaching. Discusses findings in terms of theoretical models of second language lexical representation and development, as well as in more practical terms of L2 curriculum design and vocabulary instruction.…

Summarizes the assumptions and curricular progression of the traditional German program and elaborates a possible alternative curriculum recently instituted at Transylvania University that hopes to move undergraduate German instruction in a different direction. (Author/VWL)