The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) has organized the standards for accomplished teachers of English as a new language into nine standards, which are presented in this report: (1) Standard I: Knowledge of Students; (2) Standard II: Knowledge of Culture and Diversity; (3) Standard III: Home, School, and Community…

Papers from the proceedings of the 14th Annual Conference of the Bulgarian Comparative Education Society were submitted in two volumes. Volume 1 contains papers submitted at the conference held in Sofia, Bulgaria, June 14-17, 2016. Volume 2 contains papers submitted at the 4th International Partner Conference of the International Research Centre…

With research showing the benefits of self-directed learning, more activities are needed to provide learners opportunities for self-directed practice (Khomson, 1997; Lee, 1998; Phongnapharuk, 2007). A 12-week experimental study was performed with 80 EFL learners; one group contained 40 Communication Arts students and the other one consisted of 40…

Radio is one of the most affordable educational technologies available for the use in education and development in developing countries. This article explores the use of school radio broadcast to assist teachers and pupils to learn and improve English language both written and spoken in Kenyan primary schools. English language occupies a central…

Metacognition is a concept in psychology that refers to a variety of self-awareness process that help learners learn better. It grew out of the developments over the past few decades of cognitive models of learning. This paper will present a brief overview of these models and discuss their main features. It begins with a discussion of…

The daily challenge of providing comprehensible instruction to English language learners (ELLs) can be daunting. This article discusses how teachers of ELL students may address this challenge and enrich the social studies curriculum for all. The authors begin with an account of a classroom activity that illustrates what can be done by a classroom…

Heritage language learners soon learn that their verbal competence can be both a blessing and a burden. Reliance on aural cues can provide significant interference in attempts to master spelling conventions. Now, an unlikely source--the Russian-language internet--threatens to provide negative reinforcement for the very spelling habits that…

Previous research has shown that second language (L2) learners reflect on language form when carrying out collaborative activities in L2 classrooms. This study explored which language forms Korean as a second language (KSL) learners focused on and how their linguistic issues were resolved when collaborating with interlocutors from different…

Researches have showed that joke telling is a type of verbal behavior associated with the field of sociolinguistics (e.g., Al-Khatib, 1999). This study aims to report Taiwanese jokes and their sociological functions that people in Taiwan attempt to communicate in jokes. Besides, this study will report what the typical topics and characteristics…

This study investigates English as a second language (ESL) teachers' beliefs in grammar teaching. A 32-item questionnaire was administered to 11 ESL teachers in a language school in California. The results show that the participants generally believe that the formal study of grammar is essential to the eventual mastery of a foreign or second…

Publishing research papers in English journals is now a requirement for many scientists in developing countries. Writing journal papers in English, the lingua franca of the scientific world, however, often places an additional burden on non-native speaking scientists in EFL settings due to their lack of English proficiency. With these concerns in…

Higher education institutions in the United States recognize the economic and educational benefits of international students. Although non-native English speakers (NNES) submit evidence of English language proficiency for admission purposes, many struggle with the demands of English. This study draws on qualitative and quantitative data to provide…

This study investigates the efficacy of Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) in enhancing English proficiency among foreign secondary school students in Auckland, New Zealand. With the city's increasing cultural diversity and the growing importance of English language skills in a globalized world, addressing the linguistic needs of foreign students…

This paper reports on a study designed to investigate (a) whether peer review is an effective pedagogical activity with adult Chinese students in the teaching of second language (L2) academic writing and (b) how factors such as perceptions of the influence of peer reviewers' L2 proficiency, previous experience with peer review, feedback…

As China enters WTO, more college graduates with higher oral English proficiency are required. However, we learned that even students in some distinguished universities are lack of this ability. Based on her teaching experiences and the theory proposed by Krashen and some other well-know foreign languages teaching researchers, the author of this…