It is generally assumed that second language (L2) learners find it difficult to self-assess their pronunciation skills. In view of the benefits of self-assessment for the language learning process and the need to monitor one's pronunciation in independent learning environments, we investigated the reliability of self-assessments of pronunciation…

This paper draws on the Vygotskian methodological construct of microgenesis to study collaborative activity in an intermediate Spanish as a foreign language classroom. In this study, the construct of "microgenesis" is drawn upon to refer to both, the methodological "tool" to investigate language learning instances as observed in short periods of…

Children from bilingual backgrounds are sometimes overidentified with language impairment (LI) because educators do not have appropriate developmental expectations. At other times bilingual children are underidentified because educators wait to identify difficulties while children learn the second language. In this review we discuss data on…

The impact of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is changing the nature of literary narratives for children and the contexts in which they experience and respond to such narratives outside of school contexts. However, in the main, teachers do not feel confident or comfortable in the world of digital multimedia. Children's literature…

This paper analyses the first author's experiences in writing a critical review at the beginning of postgraduate study in Australia. Utilising the first author's position as both a researcher and the researched, the paper provides a narrative account of her stage-by-stage progress in writing a review, followed by an interpretive analysis from a…

This article poses the question of how educators can put into practice the valorization of the vernacular and its use as a pedagogical resource. It provides a critical sociolinguistic orientation toward the use of Spanglish in schools. It gives a short descriptive overview of the linguistic features of Spanglish and responds to some of the…

Two experiments tested language switching effects with bilingual participants in a priming paradigm with masked primes (duration of 50ms in Experiment 1 and 100ms in Experiment 2). Participants had to monitor target words for animal names, and ERPs were recorded to critical (non-animal) words in L1 and L2 primed by unrelated words from the same or…

Most existing web-based language learning exercises may be termed "static" in that their content is fixed; the sentences exist in the form in which the developer wrote them, and the scope of the exercise and the variety of interactions can only be expanded by manually adding to the existing stock. One solution to this problem is an application…

As the minority population and achievement gap in the United States continue to grow, the rapidly increasing epidemic of leaving English-language learners (ELLs) behind is one of grave concern for educators. Due to disparities between academic Discourses and ELLs' primary Discourse, a free and equal education, as claimed by the U.S. government,…

Language for academic purposes is an important concept, not always recognised and developed within the education system. The ability to use language for learning can be difficult for individuals who are educated in a second language. They are required to master complex concepts in a language they are still acquiring. We aimed to discover how…

In Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, many Mongolian students are learning English as a third language. In the process of L3 teaching and learning, their mother tongue Mongolian, second language Chinese and target language English are involved. The present paper aims to find out teachers' and students' opinions of the use of the three languages in…

Nowadays, English writing and speaking have received more and more attention at home and abroad. Both scholars and educators have done research on second language learning, especially the learning strategies to facilitate the learning and teaching of English. Among all the branches of English, speaking and writing rank to the most important…

This thesis reports a survey study of the autonomous L2 learning by 100 first-year non-English-major Chinese post-graduates via the instruments of a questionnaire and semi-structured interview after the questionnaire. It attends to address the following research question: To what extent do Chinese postgraduate students conduct autonomous L2…

This paper explores the effectiveness of theme-based instructional (TBI) method as a means of honing the writing skills and the motivation for writing of 36 pre-degree ESL learners in a Malaysian tertiary institution. The method which focused on development of language skills through discussion of themes provided the teacher a direct and effective…

Canada, like many developed countries faced with shrinking birth rates, has come to rely on immigration as a way of building and maintaining a skilled workforce. For a majority of today's immigrants, English or French is a second language and, when their children start school, their education proceeds in one of these second languages. While many…