Describes a project that a middle school ESOL teacher and a university professor designed to challenge middle school ESOL students--immigrants from Bosnia and Mexico--to enhance their academic literacy through social interaction by sharing their own expertise as ESOL learners with a group of future ESOL teachers enrolled in a TESL literacy methods…

Examines a series of naturally-occurring phone calls between a young child and his grandmother in the child's second language (L2), Portuguese. Notes that during the calls the child's L2 appears to increase in complexity, but is subsequently abandoned. Argues that this abandonment requires an examination of the language's role in the larger…

Explores the introduction of new teacher training methods at the University of Budapest (Hungary), particularly in the use of role-play to make language learning more student-centered and interactive. Discusses teaching English as a second language in secondary schools and reports perceptions of role-play activity based on interviews with trainee…

Studied the effect of content knowledge on learners' participation in interactions between nonnative speakers. Measures of participation included amount of talk, conversational fillers, back channels, topic moves, clarification questions, and confirmation and comprehension checks. Findings support the relationship between knowledge and…

The influence on interlocutors' relative content knowledge on conversational participation in interactions between native speakers (NSs) and nonnative speakers (NNSs) with limited oral skills is investigated. Results indicate that both NSs and NNSs appeared conversationally active, but there were different patterns of participation that could to…

Reviews research on the social interaction and negotiation of second language (L2) learners and their interlocutors. This research illustrates ways in which negotiation contributes to conditions, processes, and outcomes of L2 learning by facilitating learners' comprehension and structural segmentation of L2 input, access to lexical form and…

Classroom interaction data from traditional and activity-based English classes of different sizes are compared in terms of opportunities for learners to interact meaningfully. Findings suggest that the nature of the teaching-learning activities and the teacher's role and attitude influence learner participation more than class size. (24…

A rating scale is proposed for assessing both the level of a particular communicative performance in a small group and the general ability to perform in small-group interactions over time. argues that the theoretical difficulties of designing and using rating scales for this purpose, while requiring serious consideration, are outweighed by…

Examines the role self- and other-initiations play in providing opportunities for modified output (MO), considered important for successful second language acquisition. Native- and nonnative-speakers of English performed three tasks: picture description, opinion exchange, and decision making. Results showed both self- and other-initiations…

This study focuses on the various playful uses of language that occurred during a semester-long study of two German language courses using one type of synchronous network-based medium, the MOO. Research and use of synchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC) have flourished in the study of second-language acquisition (SLA) since the late…

In the verbal linguistic systems, the target for English learners in China is educated native speaker accuracy. The target for more socially embedded interchange is yet to be established. Its basis needs to be formed from "what members of the target culture consider appropriate for foreigners and attitudes of learners themselves"…

This paper examines how context is configured in ESL students' language learning practices through computer-mediated communication (CMC). Specifically, I focus on how a group of ESL students jointly constructed the context of their CMC activities through interactional patterns and norms, and how configured affordances within the CMC environment…

Foreign or second language (L2) acquisition literature frequently makes the claim that, by not facilitating interaction, distance learning fails to create the conditions necessary for achieving the goals of widely accepted L2 communicative curriculum. This assumption is not as yet supported by any empirical evidence from L2 acquisition research.…

A discussion of classroom research on language teaching looks at what researchers have learned so far from attempts to study what happens in the language classroom. The discussion is based on the idea that it is not the currency of instructional method used that matters most, but rather a fuller understanding of classroom interaction. The first…

In order to answer the question as to what can be done with video that cannot be done with sound-only recordings, the role of the visual channel of communication in interaction is examined. This examination is based on the experience of foreign language teachers who have been using video in the classroom for five years. The point is made that in…