An oral practice system of "chats" in the classroom functions as an extemporaneous speaking exercise or chat (without notes or prompt sheets), occurring between two students for a minute or so at the beginning of class, following which the presenters respond to other students' questions. (CNP)

Summarizes the presentations of Ginny Moore Kruse and Lois Lowry at a Master Class in the Teaching of Literature conducted at the 91st annual meeting of the National Council of Teachers of English (Baltimore, MD, November 17, 2001). Notes the class addressed censorship and intellectual freedom, challenge and choice, the right to read and the right…

The adverbial phrase "a lo mejor" (at best) does not take the subjunctive, although other adverbial expressions of possibility may be followed by either indicative or subjunctive. Examines statements co-occurring with "a lo mejor" from the viewpoint of statement and mood, taking into account communicative discourse function. The study shows that…

Investigates one aspect of language use in focus on form--metalanguage. Reports on a study to identify how metalanguage was used and the relationship between the use of metalanguage and the occurrence of students uptake moves in focus on form. (Author/VWL)

Discusses the lexical element "yeah," observed in the speech of nonnative speakers of English whose native language is Mandarin. Using the framework of conversation analysis, discusses the same-turn repair environment in which the token "yeah" occurs but reveals that the token serves as an additional component, doing something…

Illustrates how the use of popular electronic communication is resulting in linguistic innovation within new, virtual social networks in a way that reflects more wide-reaching changes in the communication landscape. Suggests that teenagers and young people are in the vanguard of these processes of change as they fluently exploit the possibilities…

Explores the notion that the Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) classroom is an important site for the production and regulation of gender. Based on post-structuralist thinking, explores the notion that language learning shapes gender. Traces the relationship between language and gender in applied linguistics. (Author/VWL)…

Previous psycholinguistic research has shown that a variety of contextual factors can influence the interpretation of syntactically ambiguous structures, but psycholinguistic experimentation inherently does not allow for the investigation of the role that these factors play in natural (uncontrolled) language use. We use regression modeling in…

Within-group similarities and between-group differences are used to illustrate the socio-cultural nature of the concept-building process in highly collaborative computer science classrooms. Simultaneously, a social constructivist perspective is used to describe the individual aspects of this development. The study uses written explanations from…

The definition is an important language form in the register of mathematics. Students need to understand the structure of a definition so that they can make sense of the definitions they encounter and so that they can construct their own definitions as part of organising their thoughts about the concepts they have explored. This article suggests…

In this article, I review contact zone pedagogy from a perspective of discursive positioning and with attention to two assignments that ask basic writers to play with the conventions of academic language. The first requires them to translate a passage of academic prose into a slang of their choice; the second, to compose a parody of academic…

Whether translating research findings for public consumption, or arguing for a policy position that reflects social work values, social workers engaged in cause advocacy need rhetorical skills. The author draws from the disciplines of linguistics, logic, and communications and provides a framework for making arguments in the public arena. The…

When people engage in conversation, they tailor their utterances to their conversational partners, whether these partners are other humans or computational systems. This tailoring, or adaptation to the partner takes place in all facets of human language use, and is based on a "mental model" or a "user model" of the conversational partner. Such…

This paper is a response to Paul Meara's (2005) critique of the Lexical Frequency Profile (LFP). Using simulated data, he challenges the claim that LFP is a sensitive and reliable tool for assessing vocabulary use in L2 speakers. In my response to his paper, I discuss the nature of lexical competence, in light of which LFP results should be…

So much has been made over the crisis in English literature as field, as corpus, and as canon in recent years, that some of it undoubtedly has spilled over into English education. This has been the case in predominantly English-speaking Anglo-American and Commonwealth nations, as well as in those postcolonial states where English remains the…