Although the acquisition of the English plural morpheme by monolingual English-speaking children (L1 learners) has been studied extensively, little is known about the processes through which native speakers of other languages (L2 speakers) acquire the English plural morpheme. To understand the similarities and differences between L1 and L2 English…

In this article, I argue for an understanding of EAP to be mobilised more around language, its materiality, especially in written form, and the intellectual challenge of learning it. Concomitantly, I argue against the increasing technicisation of language, as it is embodied in the regulatory framework of institutions and its emaciation as an…

The purpose of this article is to evaluate the applicability of task-based language teaching (TBLT) to state secondary foreign language classes. After discussion of method in general, TBLT is defined and its particularities described. Tasks are assessed as the basis for syllabus and then as the basis for method. In both cases, the proposals are…

This article reports the results of an experiment investigating the role of comic strips on ESL learners' reading comprehension. The students' proficiency levels were estimated, and students were organized into a low intermediate-level proficiency group (low-level students) and a high intermediate-level proficiency group (high-level students).…

The United States has been engaged in school reform for three decades. The federal government as well as all fifty states have passed numerous versions of reform legislation to mandate and regulate the process. Educators have adjusted their practices to the policy created by this legislation. They have also allocated hundreds of billions of…

Basic English Writing (BEW) courses have been part of English learning curricula in many universities. Some research has been conducted to investigate various class designs for English language courses. However, class designs for English writing are not yet abundantly developed to provide more experimental results. The purpose of this study was to…

In recent years, increasing emphasis has been put on pragmatic competence as part of foreign language curricula. This article analyzes the devices used by learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) in order to perform the "speech act of disagreement" in their L2. Data from 27 ESL learners were gathered by means of Discourse…

The social reform and opening-up in Chinese society in the last three decades have resulted in overall changes in almost every aspect of social life of its people. As an important indicator in these changes, English has become an important tool in education for students to move ahead to a higher level of schooling, and better jobs in the…

Students are rarely given the opportunity of being decisionmakers in class, and when they are, they may feel unsure of how to organize their own learning. However, over time they come to appreciate the benefits of a more active engagement in learning English. In this paper, I describe a procedure based on Exploratory Practice (EP) for guiding…

This study investigates the application of voice recognition technology to online lectures focusing on the efficacy of the text component of a multimedia presentation. Specifically, participants were provided with online access to multimedia instructional packages comprising an image of the lecturer with accompanying computer slides, plus…

"The Achiever" is a monthly publication for parents and community leaders from the Office of Communications and Outreach, U.S. Department of Education (ED). Each issue contains news and information about school improvement in the United States. Highlights of this issue include: (1) President Sets Agenda for Education; (2) "Beating…

Taking into consideration some gaps observed in SLA research--noticing, recasts, input enhancement (IE),…-- and in CALL/CMC research, a study was conducted among 12 advanced FL Spanish learners to assess whether and how, by communicating with a Spanish native speaker in 5 chat-room sessions, their language competence would develop in the following…

The study examined deaf clients' perceptions of counseling expertise as a function of several counseling variables: counselor's signing skill, gender, and therapy type. Twenty undergraduate students at a special college for the deaf who were enrolled in either counseling courses or psychology courses viewed 4 video clips reflecting a mock…

With President George W. Bush's unprecedented call in January 2006 to expand the foreign language capacity of the United States, it has become clear that languages other than English (LOE) are of great interest to public policy in the United States. Yet the language capacity of the United States remains poorly documented. The 2000 General Social…

In this selective look at research on test-taking strategies over the last 25 years, brief mention is made of the beginnings of test-taker strategy research, and then important developments in its evolution to the present are discussed, focusing on conceptual frameworks for classifying strategies, first and second language-related strategies,…