This study in Conversation Analysis investigates the organization of other-initiated repair sequences in American learners of German, i.e., it examines how learners deal with troubles in hearing or understanding that they encounter in naturally-occurring talk-in-interaction. Data for the project were collected during informal interaction in…

In this research study I explore: (a) beliefs Korean ESL readers have about reading in L1 and L2 prior to the Retrospective Miscue Analysis (RMA) sessions, (b) how their beliefs about reading affect the way they read in L1 and L2 and their evaluation of themselves as readers in L1 and L2 reading, and (c) change of their beliefs about reading and…

Grammatical metaphor is the term used by Halliday to refer to meaning transference in grammar. Instead of the congruent realization of a norm, the metaphorical representation has become the norm in many instances. Metaphorical modes of expression are characteristic of all adult discourses (Halliday, 1994). The shift from congruent to metaphorical…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to link the notions of language learning and leadership, using Gandhi as a case study. Theoretical Framework: This work is studied through a constructivist lens, and is further influenced by Educational Leadership thinkers such as Michael Fullan (2006). Methodology: Choosing a broad general theme of interest…

This dissertation measured the acoustic properties of the English fricatives and affricates produced by native and Chinese L2 speakers of English to identify the phonetic basis and sources of a foreign accent and to explore the mechanism involved in L2 speech production and L2 phonological acquisition at the segmental level. Based on a Network…

In this paper, we argue that current instructional ESL resources must be supplemented to facilitate the effective development of learners' oral fluency. We summarize some of the pertinent literature on L2 fluency and report the results of a survey of fluency activities (free production, rehearsal/repetition, consciousness-raising, and use of…

This laboratory-based study of second- and third-year American university students learning French examines the effectiveness of implicit and explicit corrective feedback on noun-adjective agreement errors. The treatment consisted of one hour of interactive tasks. Implicit feedback was operationalized as a single recast with interrogative…

The idea that study abroad (SA) is an ideal context for acquiring language is one largely supported by foreign language (FL) students and their teachers, the latter often recollecting their own successful if not life-transforming sojourns abroad. According to Rivers (1998), SA represents "an environment which most closely resembles the…

The role of (written) corrective feedback (CF) in the process of acquiring a second language (L2) has been an issue of considerable controversy among theorists and researchers alike. Although CF is a widely applied pedagogical tool and its use finds support in SLA theory, practical and theoretical objections to its usefulness have been raised…

"Constructions" are the central unit of grammatical analysis in cognitive linguistics. In formal linguistics "construction" referred to forms that were projected from lexical items rather than from an autonomous syntax. Thus, an expression, "I danced the night away" requires an intransitive verb in a transitive construction provided "away" is…

In this article, the author shares two ideas that have guided her as she has attempted to ground curricular design in a web of diverse elements, on one hand, and also communicate more explicitly to students how and why an undergraduate Spanish major encompasses more than just development of oral proficiency in face-to-face interactions in order to…

In 2005 the BBC reported that in reply to a survey conducted by the European Commission, 66% of English respondents indicated that they spoke no language other than their mother tongue. This proportion was far higher than in any other European Union nation taking part but compares fairly favorably with the United States, where one-fourth of adults…

In the past two years, the Modern Language Association (MLA) has produced two significant proposals for curricular change in foreign languages. The first, "Foreign Languages and Higher Education: New Structures for a Changing World," addressed the foreign language curriculum with specific suggestions for programmatic transformation. The second,…

This study investigated whether there are any significant differences between EFL and ESL readers in metacognitive reading strategies when they are reading academic texts in English. One hundred and ninety undergraduate students (96 Iranians and 93 Indians) completed an instrument designed to measure the students' metacognitive awareness of…

This article examines the interactional work in which two groups of secondary ESL students engaged to achieve and sustain participation in group oral assessment, which is designed to assess a student's interactive communication skills in a school-based assessment context. The in-depth observation of the ways in which participants co-constructed…