All tenured and tenure-track faculty know the trinity of promotion and tenure criteria: research, teaching, and service. While teaching and research are relatively well-defined areas of institutional focus and evaluation, service work is rarely tabulated or analyzed as a key aspect of higher education's political economy. Instead, service, silent…

Teaching English became a professional and academic field from a half century ago. Many researches for teacher education and teacher training have been conducted in order to raise the English as well as the foreign language trainers' knowledge and capabilities in carrying out effective lessons in classroom. During second millennium of speedily…

A study investigated factors that facilitate innovation in intensive English programs at 43 universities, based on administrators' perceptions. Results indicate program aspects felt to influence innovation, successfully implemented innovations, and perceived qualities of innovative policies and practices. A complex set of variables emerged. (MSE)

Recent years have seen the emergence of Web2.0, in which users are not only passive recipients of the featured content, but actively engaged in constructing it. Sites such as "Facebook" and "Myspace" are typical examples of this, as are blogs that allow users to present themselves online, to write about their daily lives or even to establish…

The purpose of the provincial English as a Second Language (ESL) articulation process is to maintain high standards of quality in ESL programming at the public post-secondary institutions of British Columbia, as well as to facilitate access to programs at other public institutions for students wishing to transfer. Skill requirements are defined…

This article is a reflection on the promises and pitfalls of using a simulation-centered curriculum for English as a Second Language (ESL) writing over time. A one-time graduate student and instructor of the program, the author returned after 10 years to the program as the director to discover that as with any curriculum, changes had…

This article examines the case of Laura, a 9-year-old Mexican immigrant who officially "failed to learn English" in an American school. It may be more accurate to say that schooling failed Laura, and in ways that went beyond language learning. This diagnosis of failure is criticized, along with the individualistic and essentialist assumptions…

If good proficiency in L2 entails the acquisition not only of many single words but of many lexical chunks as well, it must then be asked how all this additional lexis is to be committed to long-term memory in the limited time available on non-intensive classroom-based language courses. If it is the case that a significant fraction of…

Presents a brief history of the status of foreign language instruction from 1953 to 1984. Summarizes research on effects of foreign language study. Describes the foreign language education program at the University of Tennessee--Knoxville, providing an overview of the organization, curricular content, and methodology. Evaluates Knoxville's unique…

There are many analogies between the teaching of music and the teaching of foreign languages. First, the subjects themselves are similar: both are associated with culture, both involve a notational system, both represent a means of communication, and so on. The learning processes associated with music and language are similar, as well. Both are…

Describes some of the funding problems facing many study abroad programs and examines some approaches that have proven successful in combatting these problems. (EKN)

To help students compete in a global economy, American teachers must begin teaching children a second language at an early age. Describes the advantages of learning a second language at the elementary school level, highlighting three currently-used language programs (immersion, Foreign Language in the Elementary Schools, and Foreign Language…

In recent years there has been greater emphasis placed on second language acquisition in schools. To be prepared for life in the 21st century, to function within an increasingly interdependent world society, to be free from the petty biases that hinder understanding and from the larger hatreds that lead to confrontation, children will need to…

Emerging social writing platforms offer possibilities for language learners to collaborate around joint assignments. One such environment is the wiki, generally hosting two prominent modes of usage, web pages and discussion forums. This study investigates software engineering students' use of a wiki as an integrated tool within the frames of a…

The development of high school Japanese language programs (JLPs) in Oregon has been remarkable since the 1980s. However, high school students educated in Japanese face problems of articulation as they enter the JLP at the University of Oregon. Because little attention has been paid to the problem of articulation, a study of these students'…