This study compared the writing evaluations performed by native English speakers and native Japanese speakers who teach writing in English as a foreign language (EFL) in Japan. Subjects were 32 Japanese and 32 native English-speaking EFL instructors, divided into 2 mixed groups of equal size and proportion. One group evaluated an authentic…

This paper examines the importance of political and sociocultural factors in foreign language education, focusing on English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) learning in Lebanon. It begins with a historical review of foreign language education in Lebanon, then discusses the current role and status of English in the Lebanese context, which reveals…

This paper discusses how to teach Spanish subject matter to U.S. college students, focusing on one professor's experiences teaching an upper level Spanish class, Spanish Subject Matters, to students who plan to be K-12 or bilingual classroom teachers. The paper stresses the current need for bilingual teachers, suggesting that a teacher does not…

The wealth of information available on the Web affords teachers and learners access to language learning resources like never before. Online journals, listservs, newspapers, and magazines provide authentic material for language learners, while teachers can find lesson plans and ideas, exercises, assessment tools, and other materials for use in…

This book explores the development of critical cultural awareness through the process of teaching and learning about foreign cultures. It draws upon theoretical foundations relating to inter- and intra-cultural communication from contemporary philosophical movements, namely critical theory and postmodernism. The study adopts critical pedagogy as…

This paper examines classroom interaction between native and non-native instructors and heritage language (HL) students in regular university foreign language (FL) courses, ranging from beginning to advanced levels. After an overview of FL teaching and HL students in U.S. universities, the paper deals with three areas within classroom interaction:…

This paper describes an elective course at Taiwan's Wen Tzao Ursuline College of Modern Languages, "Concise English Poetry Appreciation and Recitation." The course is based on the reader response approach and targets third year students, leading them into the world of poetry through various stages (traditional nursery rhymes and simple,…

This study investigated the influence of e-mail on English language learning among college freshmen enrolled in a remedial English class. English was considered the first or second foreign language for all participants. Students were divided into two groups. One group was allowed face to face communication in class and during office hours with the…

This paper reports on an investigation of learning strategy applications in elementary foreign language immersion classrooms. The focus of the paper is on identifying strategies more and less effective learners use for classroom reading and writing tasks in the target language. Think-aloud data from third grade and fourth grade students were…

The International English Training for Adults Program is an intensive ESL (English as a Second Language) program for foreign students. Students in the program take 18 hours of classes per week, including Conversation Partners, a 3-hour course designed to give students an opportunity to practice using English with Americans in a structured,…

This review examined the sequencing and grading of tasks in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) task-based learning pedagogy. Recent research on task-based learning has focused on cognition and the role that cognitive processes play in determining the ease or difficulty of any particular task. It is argued that an understanding of the effects on…

If communicative competence is defined by and organized around culturally-framed and linguistically-patterned communicative plans and goals and the linguistic resources of interactive practices, then interaction in the classroom is employed to create social engagement in regularly occurring interactive practices where communicative learning can be…

This document, comprising volume 5, issues 1-3 of Learning Languages: The Journal of the National Network for Early Language Learning (NNELL), includes the following articles: "Poverty, Race, and Foreign Language Immersion: Predictors of Math and English Language Arts Performance" (Stephen J. Caldas, Nicole Boudreaux); "Meet a…

This study evaluated the effectiveness of the Crossroads Cafe program, an instructional program for adults that promotes a nontraditional learning environment with limited intervention by a professional teacher. It studied 475 limited-English-proficient (LEP) adult learners using Crossroads Cafe videotapes and text materials under field conditions…

The book offers an international collection of best practices that address the particular interests and demands of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) and English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) teaching at the secondary school level. It includes instructional activities that are created by ESL and EFL teachers and are classroom-tested and…