As an important yet intricate linguistic feature in English language, synonymy poses a great challenge for second language learners. Using the 100 million-word British National Corpus (BNC) as data and the software Sketch Engine (SkE) as an analyzing tool, this article compares the usage of "learn" and "acquire" used in natural…

Much research is available that details student experiences of immigration and adaptation to receiving countries and schools, but few studies analyze the metaphors used by immigrant students (IS) when talking about the immigration experience, or offer a comparative lens through which to view identity negotiation in two very different contexts. The…

Transmission-based language classrooms have been mostly dominated by teachers' authority, as reflected in IRF (Teacher Initiation, Student Response, Teacher Follow up/Feedback) architecture of their discourses. By contrast, Critical Pedagogy (CP) has been after fostering multivocality in and out of classroom borders. Which qualities of teacher…

Only a few characteristics of picture-based narrative prompts have been studied to determine what features affect task performance. Thus, it is not easy to identify equivalent narrative prompts or identify features that are impactful. Tavakoli and Foster (2008) and Tavakoli (2009) examined the impact of prompt on the language produced by English…

Language education faculty face myriad challenges in finding teaching resources that are suitable, of high quality, and allow for the modifications needed to meet the requirements of their course contexts and their learners. The article elaborates the grassroots model of "produsage" (a portmanteau of "production" and…

The study of L1 (first language) use in L2 (second language) classrooms has long received attention in the literature. Despite the considerable amount of research that has been conducted on the phenomenon, the focus has often been on the advantages and disadvantages. Considerably, less research has been conducted regarding the non-native L2…

The paper focuses on how nonnative teachers of a target language (NNTs) deal with pragmatics in their classes. It starts with a discussion of what pragmatics entails. Next, issues relating to the teaching of pragmatics are identified, such as the language background of the teacher, comparisons between second- (L2) and foreign-language (FL)…

Research on Arabic as a foreign language has centered on studying students' attitudes toward the problems of learning Arabic as a foreign/second language. Because little is currently known about language use within the Arabic classrooms, this study aimed to investigate how students perceive the use of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and colloquial…

The language that students use with whole numbers can be insufficient when learning integers. This is often the case when children interpret addition as "getting more" or "going higher." In this study, we explore whether instruction on mapping directed magnitudes to operations helps 88 second graders and 70 fourth graders solve…

The common core, with its emphasis on the development of English language art and mathematics skills and literacy, presents challenges for teachers of all subjects. Academic language is expected to be developed within each disciplinary area. In other words, educators are expected to identify the language demands of their discipline and prepare…

Learning to value difference and diversity is a central goal of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) professional practice programmes in New Zealand. Yet the authors have continued to struggle to work with their ITE students to move them as a group towards such valuing in both theory and practice. In this article events that lead up to the changes…

Improving student learning is the primary goal of every teacher of algebra. Teachers seek strategies to help all students learn important algebra content and develop mathematical practices. The new Institute of Education Sciences[IES] practice guide, "Teaching Strategies for Improving Algebra Knowledge in Middle and High School Students"…

The last couple of decades have seen an enormous development in the study of embodied cognition through the investigation of conceptual mappings, such as conceptual metaphor and conceptual blending. Initially, this progress was achieved at a theoretical level, and more recently through empirical research in basic science--from psycholinguistics,…

Chinese children of immigrant families are often perceived as good at memorization and rote learning or as polite, obedient, and passive students lacking creativity and criticality. Guided by Multiple Literacies Theory and translanguaging, this study explores how Chinese children in a Mandarin-English bilingual program skillfully navigate…

Boosters are an important metadiscourse device for writers because it creates an emphatic impression in the reader. In addition, the competence of metadiscourse devices such as boosters is crucial in having native-fluency in academic writing. Therefore, this avoidance of using boosters may spawn foreignness in non-native writers' academic texts.…