This article examines the relationship between spoken language research and ELT practice over the last 20 years. The first part is retrospective. It seeks first to capture the general tenor of recent spoken research findings through illustrative examples. The article then considers the sociocultural issues that arose when the relevance of these…

This study examines the impact of a course that focused on social equity teaching, and particularly, teachers' attitudes toward the capacities of students in culturally nondominant communities. Findings from surveys and written documents reveal that course participants were better able to recognize students' inherent abilities and knowledge…

Though many previous studies have reported enhanced cognitive control in bilinguals, few have investigated if such control is modulated by language proficiency. Here, we examined the inhibitory control of high and low proficient Hindi-English bilinguals on an oculomotor Stroop task. Subjects were asked to make a saccade as fast as possible towards…

This article maps critical literacies conceptually and empirically in the context of adult immigrant language classrooms. It begins by describing Deleuze and Guattari's cartographic approach. Then it traces critical literacies situated conceptually within a Freirean paradigm before mapping them differently through the Deleuzian-informed Multiple…

This thematic issue on education and the politics of becoming focuses on how a Multiple Literacies Theory (MLT) plugs into practice in education. MLT does this by creating an assemblage between discourse, text, resonance and sensations. What does this produce? Becoming AND how one might live are the product of an assemblage (May, 2005; Semetsky,…

Motivation is a well-researched construct; however, few studies have investigated how teachers perceive and make sense of situations in which learners are not motivated to learn. Thirty-two EFL teachers working in Japanese universities were surveyed and interviews with three of these teachers were conducted to reveal their perceptions of student…

The study of English language teachers' cognitions and its relationship to teachers' classroom practices have recently been the focus of language teaching and teacher education (Borg, 2006 & 2010). However, rarely have the studies delved into teachers' knowledge about grammar (reviewed by Borg, 2001) or investigated the relationships between…

This article reports on a qualitative investigation into the ways that speakers of other languages negotiate their identities in an English-medium international school. As elective-bilinguals, it is generally assumed that such individuals are exempt from unfavourable positioning. As beginning speakers of English, however, older participants in…

Evidence-based outcomes in the literature have caused adjustments in neuro-psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic perspectives that indicate a need for a current model of education. Implications from research suggest the new model of education should use a multilingual framework: L3 enhances and reinforces L2 and L1, if L2 and L1 are supported. The…

Drawing on in-depth interview data collected on 18 high-achieving Chinese American students, the authors examine domains of acculturation-based conflicts, parent and child internal conflicts, and conflict resolution in their families. Their analyses show that well-established negative communication patterns in educational expectations, divergent…

This paper reviews 25 doctoral dissertations on second language acquisition (SLA), English language learning and teaching submitted in Poland in the years 2006-2010. The theses were selected for review on the basis of the recommendations of Ph.D. supervisors from leading Polish universities and they are divided into six groups: learner autonomy,…

This article makes a case for studying the perceptions that young people have of the ways of speaking of both themselves and others on the supposition that constructions of ambient sociolinguistic variation have an impact on the language development and use of individual language users. Such a study is particularly relevant in multilingual…

This study has traced the growth of a new facility intended to promote independent language study in a Japanese university. The study traces this Self Access Learning Center (SALC) from its inception through the first two years of its development. It has revealed how key qualitative insights from an archive of semi-structured interviews,…

This paper considers the case of Intercultural Understanding (IU) as a component part of foreign language learning and teaching in the upper stage of primary schools (roughly ages 7-11 years) in the UK. It is set within a specific context of curriculum innovation, namely recent policy changes which have introduced IU as a key part of primary…

This paper draws on fieldwork conducted over the course of one academic year in two urban high-school English learner (EL) classrooms located in the south-western part of the United States. As part of a larger interest in how language ideologies mediate classroom discourse practices, this paper analyses the role of awareness in language…