This classroom-based action research explored the influence of creative engagement strategies-- a combination of Participation Squares and Spin-the-Wheel--on enhancing student engagement in a middle school classroom. The study was motivated by a recurring issue of poor student engagement. The intervention, used as a class starter to boost student…

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how students' mathematics identities were developed and how their agency was fostered through the use of a mathematical action technology (MAT), Desmo, during stages of learning beyond noticing and wondering. The authors describe how they enacted an eighth-grade mathematics lesson depicting students…

This study explored prospective middle school mathematics teachers' developing understanding of geometric transformations through designing and implementing an instructional unit in a technology supported classroom environment. The instructional unit including seven activities was developed by considering past research on learners' pre-existing…

The purpose of this study was to investigate gender differences in classroom interactions and preferences by analysing data collected by a questionnaire, observations and interviews. The data were collected focussing on male and female attitudes towards the teacher's gender, teacher's body language, the task partner's gender, the task type,…

This study investigated Task-Based Language Learning (TBLL) through Digital StoryTelling (DST) in a blended learning environment. Twenty-six Turkish university-level students prepared a DST individually and shared it with their peers in an online discussion platform. Each evaluated and graded others' DST performance based on an assessment scale.…

Codeswitching is reported to be a common feature of group work in EFL classes, particularly those with learners sharing the same native language. On the other hand, there is little research on codeswitching in group work in EFL contexts. This study aims to investigate the reasons why codeswitching is employed in EFL group work interactions among…

The study attempts to highlight a major cause of learners' detachment and low performance in ESL classrooms at graduation levels in Bahawalpur City, Punjab, Pakistan. In this connection, this study tries to focus on the role of teachers' feedback remarks as a major cause of either instilling or accelerating sense of alienation among ESL learners.…

This article describes an initiative launched at a Canadian bilingual university in order to encourage L2 French and L2 English learners to take 'linguistic risks': authentic, autonomous communicative acts where learners are pushed out of their linguistic comfort zone. The initiative was operationalized through the development of a Linguistic…

A growing body of research has shown a positive role of task-supported instruction in second language (L2) learning (Ellis, 2003a; Loewen, 2015; Van Den Branden, 2006). From a pedagogical perspective, recycling or repeating parts of teaching materials is common practice and theoretical support for such practice is emerging (Bygate and Samuda,…

Effectively leading whole-class mathematics discussions is made more difficult when students' contributions are incomplete, imprecise, or not yet correct, and not easily correctable--what we call "errors." Through purposefully designed opportunities to investigate, enact, and reflect on teaching, teacher candidates (TCs) can develop…

Research on form focused instruction has provided support for the use of collaborative tasks in which learners focus their attention on formal aspects of language and consciously reflect on their own language use (i.e. produce language-related episodes or LREs). A strand of research on LREs in different educational contexts examines the effect of…

Exploring opportunities by which learners can internalize new knowledge and consolidate existing knowledge has long been a point of interest in English as a foreign language research. This study investigated how meta-talk opportunities on discourse markers created by four task types including text reconstruction, dictogloss, translation and jigsaw…

This paper aims to explore teacher strategies for managing student participation in a complex Multi-user Virtual Environment. Data include transcribed recordings from a task-based EFL course in Second Life. Conversational Analysis is adopted to analyze the teacher's verbal language output in the transcript, and a student questionnaire is used to…

This research explores learner-learner interactions (n = 18) in an authentic EFL classroom. First, we examined the nature of interactional feedback provided during two decision-making tasks. We then investigated whether the learners had made use of the feedback by looking at whether (and if so, how) they had modified their output immediately after…

This paper describes an approach to task evaluation that emerged out of the process of the negotiated development of a course between two co-teachers. The course was co-taught by one ELT specialist and a specialist in a subject area. The teachers were equal partners in this self-contained course. While teaching a new class, the teaching partners…