In the past few years researchers have begun to show an interest in humour and language play as it relates to second language learning (SLL). Tarone (2000) has suggested that L2 language play may be facilitative of SLL, in particular by developing sociolinguistic competence, as learners experiment with L2 voices; and by destabilizing the…

Programs and policies related to the education of English learners are often based on the belief that fluency in English is the primary, if not sole, requirement for academic success. While English is in fact necessary for academic success in U.S. schools, so is a strong base in content-area academics. This study investigated the effects of track…

This paper describes an action research project undertaken to look into the effectiveness of tasks designed to raise learner awareness of conversational strategies. The goal was to test whether tasks and direct instruction aimed at promoting learner awareness of conversational language at the discourse-level had any impact on the students'…

This study investigated attention control in tasks involving the processing of relational terms (more highly grammaticized linguistic stimuli: spatial prepositions) and non-relational terms (less highly grammaticized lexical stimuli: nouns) in a first (L1) and second language (L2). Participants were adult bilinguals with greater proficiency in…

This paper makes a methodological contribution to the emerging field of learner corpus analysis [Granger, S., 1998. Learner English on Computer. Longman, London, 1998; Granger, S., 2002. Computer Learner corpora, Second Language Acquisition, and Foreign Language Teaching. John Benjamins, Amsterdam, 2002] and to Second Language Acquisition (SLA)…

The purpose of the current study was (a) to assess the effectiveness of the lexical-set (LS) and the semantically-unrelated (SU) vocabulary instruction, separately and relative to each other, and (b) to assess the differential effects of the two methods for students of lower and upper English proficiency levels. Two intact EFL classes were…

This study focused on Japanese linguistic features that contribute to producing the paragraph-length and extended connected discourse that is expected at the Advanced and Superior levels in ACTFL oral proficiency interviews (OPIs). From 15 Japanese OPIs at the Intermediate-High through Superior levels, 3,062 predicates were identified. Frequent…

At a time when many states are poised to roll out new standardized tests to evaluate English-language proficiency in unprecedented depth, California is balking at carrying out a federal requirement to test the literacy of young children who are learning English. Recently, the California board of education decided to ask the U.S. Department of…

Students can be provided opportunities to build both English and mathematical proficiency through reading, discussing and extending mathematics-related books. The experience of a teacher through which she expanded her instructional use of mathematics-related literature is described, which was equally valuable for English Language Learners and…

This study examined the relationship between time spent on reading and reading comprehension in a second language (L2). Eighty-one French-speaking learners of English, from beginners to advanced, were tested for reading comprehension in French and in English as well as for English grammar and vocabulary competence. Low-proficiency learners showed…

It has been observed that there is a strong association between the inherent (lexical) aspect of verbs and the acquisition of tense-aspect morphology (the aspect hypothesis; Andersen & Shirai, 1994). To investigate why such an association is observed, this study examined the influence of inherent aspect and learners' first language (L1) on the…

This article examines what one university has done to prepare for its program review for recognition by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), a Specialized Professional Association (SPA) of NCATE. The history of the standards movement within higher…

This paper analyses the effects of manipulating the cognitive complexity of L2 oral tasks on language production. It specifically focuses on self-repairs, which are taken as a measure of accuracy since they denote both attention to form and an attempt at being accurate. By means of a repeated measures design, 42 lower-intermediate students were…

The authors investigated the influence of language proficiency on the cross-language transfer (CLT) of phonemic awareness in Spanish-speaking kindergarten students and assessed Spanish and English receptive vocabulary and phonemic awareness abilities. Correlation results indicated positive correlations between phonemic awareness across languages;…

The Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) field continues to experience increased valuing of experiential practitioner knowledge. A welcome result of this evolution has been the broadening of research perspectives. The 16 practitioner narratives in "Insights on Teaching Speaking in TESOL" are written by…