American Sign Language (ASL) began at Seminole Middle School in August 2007 as part of the program, D.E.C.A.L (Division of Communication and Law), the brainchild of principal, Dr. Kris Black. Her goal was to offer a program that would entice advanced middle school students from around Broward County to Seminole and the hook she used to entice them…

In any discussion of multilingual Asia, caution is in order, for two reasons. One is that Asia is a vast land mass connecting variegated peoples cartographically but not sociologically. Second, describing and accounting for the sociolinguistic complexities of Asia (or anywhere else, for that matter) is history in the making in that, just like…

Using an experimental approach, this study examined the relative effectiveness of varying the use of songs (lyrics and music) on vocabulary acquisition, language usage, and meaning for adult ESL students in the People's Republic of China. While the use of songs is generally enthusiastically endorsed by ESL teachers, few empirical studies have…

This paper examines language-brokering events to better understand how children utilize their linguistic resources to create spaces where the coexistence of two languages can enable or restrict understanding and learning of academic content for themselves and others. An analysis of the structure of language-brokering events reveals that different…

This article reports on an experimental investigation of knowledge of distributivity in nonnative (L2) Japanese learners whose first language (L1) is English or Korean. The availability of distributive scope in Japanese is modulated by word order and the semantic features of quantifiers. For English-speaking learners, these subtle interpretive…

Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) literature notes concerns with research in the field, and many of these concerns are similar to those noted for second language acquisition research in general. One fundamental problem is the general failure to address Garrett's (1991) assertion that research must consider classroom context. We believe…

The current study provides guidance for both junior computer-assisted language learning (CALL) researchers as they decide on the most appropriate forms and placement of scholarly activity and also for decision makers attempting to evaluate the scholarly activity of these CALL researchers in their quest for promotion and tenure. In this study, data…

This paper investigates ESL learners' awareness of pragmatic skills utilizing an activity-theory driven approach to perform an inquiry task into problem-solving service call conversations (PSSCs) between native speakers (NS) and non-native speakers of English (NNSs). Eight high-intermediate ESL learners, from five different language backgrounds,…

Lexical use seems to represent one of the major problems Korean learners face in learning English. One of the factors attributable to the learners' lexical problems may be in large part due to the use of the Korean language as a medium of instruction in teaching English. Fifty native Korean students took part in this research. They were of 20 male…

Intended French curriculum objectives refer to four official objectives of teaching and learning French in secondary schools in Kenya as laid down in syllabuses; namely, to equip learners with basic communicative skills, give learners access to oral and written materials, facilitate further studies, and promote global peace (Republic of Kenya,…

English is regarded as an International Language. Most Thai students have to learn English as a Foreign Language (EFL). Significantly, learning languages, not only English, is related to a foreign culture's behavioral norms, and cultural values that usually determine a person's self-identity. Especially, students in English major may undergo…

This study examined the effect of information about native/non-native speaker status on non-native listeners' perception of English words with word-final stops. A survey study conducted with 38 Chinese learners of English in Guangzhou, China examined their stereotypes about Cantonese English. They described it negatively and named features…

The Cognition Hypothesis (Robinson 2005) claims that pedagogic tasks should be sequenced for learners in an order of increasing cognitive complexity, and that along resource-directing dimensions of task demands increasing effort at conceptualization promotes more complex and grammaticized second language (L2) speech production. This article…

There is a wealth of literature examining the role of motivation in second language (L2) learning but remarkably little research that has examined how teachers can foster motivation in the classroom. For this reason alone Guilloteaux and Dornyei's (2008) correlational study of the relationship between motivational strategies and student motivation…

Teacher-based assessment (TBA) is increasingly being promoted in educational policies internationally, with English language teachers being called on to plan and/or implement appropriate assessment procedures to monitor and evaluate student progress in their own classrooms. However, there has been a lack of theorization of TBA in the English…