This article provides readers with an understanding of the concept of the personal learning environment (PLE). It suggests that PLEs can be used in two complementary ways: as a developmental lens for integrating ICT and creating new pedagogical practices and digital literacies for academic language learning, and as a context in which learners can…

This article presents two case studies that show how learner involvement and collaboration in assessment are valid pedagogic tools to encourage learner reflection and engagement, particularly where a very traditional approach to language learning is the norm. The authors, who teach in universities in Japan, discuss different but related approaches…

This study compared the relationship between the use of Persian vs. English in teaching English grammar to Iranian students and their achievement in learning English grammar. The participants of this study include 50 female students from a junior high school in Mehran. The researcher randomly selected 2 groups, one group was taught through the…

The aim of our study was to examine the relationship between access to the mental lexicon, working memory and knowledge of English (L2) vocabulary. Analyses were undertaken amongst monolingual speakers of Polish (26 with dyslexia, 24 without) who studied English as a second language as part of their compulsory educational programme at school. We…

This study aimed at investigating the direct and indirect effects that teachers' self-efficacy beliefs exert on students' learning approaches via affecting their perceptions of classroom structure. The sample included 40 English teachers and 240 first-grade female students from high schools in Iran. To collect data, three questionnaires were…

This study focused on household funds of knowledge or "historically accumulated bodies of knowledge and skills essential for household functioning and well-being" (Gonzalez, Andrade, Civil, & Moll, 2001). A Funds of Knowledge approach provides both a methodological and theoretical lens for educators to understand both themselves and…

As part of Malaysia's aspirations to achieve developed nation status by 2020, and become a key player in the global economy, the government has sought to improve the English language proficiency of its citizens while maintaining the status and significance of the Malay Language as the national language. Recent strategies have involved…

This article focuses on the ways of researching the process of designing, developing, and using telecollaboration (also known as online intercultural exchange) to facilitate the learning of both linguistic and "intercultural communicative competence" (ICC) in higher education courses in different educational contexts in the United…

In an age of transnational mobility, there has been a growing recognition of the need for both English and French mainstream classroom teachers to be trained to teach increasingly plurilingual student populations. In this article, I begin by describing the context for an exploratory comparative and collaborative ethnographic action research study…

Cummins suggested that within a social context of unequal power relations, classroom interactions are never neutral, but located on a continuum ranging between the reinforcement of coercive relations of power and the promotion of collaborative relations of power. Drawing on this understanding, the purpose of this paper is to examine instructional…

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the use of diacritics in the Arabic script of Malay to facilitate Arab postgraduate students of UKM to read the Malay words accurately. It is hypothesised that the Arabic script could facilitate the reading of Malay words among the Arab students because of their earlier exposure to the Arabic script in…

This study relied on Sheorey and Mokhtari's (2001) metacognitive knowledge about reading strategies,which was influenced by a number of factors, including previous experiences, beliefs, culture-specific instructional practices and proficiency in a second language (L2). This study is thereby built on the premise that EFL readers' metacognitive…

Motivations of Maori heritage language learners are explored within this qualitative study. "Te reo" Maori (the Maori language) is currently classed as endangered (Reedy et al., 2011), which calls for the exploration of the motivational experiences of Maori heritage language learners. A total of 19 interviews with beginner, intermediate…

We investigate translanguaging (i.e. the co-use of first and second languages) in a Content and Language Integrated Learning course, as a pragmatic means to promote the skill of young university students in extended critical academic writing. We aimed to prepare new undergraduate students (n = 180) for courses where partial English-medium…

Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) has been widely implemented in educational systems in Europe since the mid-1990s based on their multilingual education policy. CLIL integrates acquisition of subject knowledge with language learning, either a second or foreign language, simultaneously. Recently, CLIL in English has been introduced in…