The author reports on perceptions of East Asian international graduate students (EAGS) regarding active classroom participation, as revealed through two focus group interviews with 15 EAGS at a large Midwestern research university in the U.S. The findings indicate that most EAGS shared similar views with their university instructors and American…

This study adds to the body of empirical knowledge regarding the use of music in the EFL classroom. This original investigation centered around the following question: Does listening repetition, song likeability, and/or song understandability influence learning environment perceptions, learning perceptions, and/or learning outcomes in Taiwanese…

This article is divided into two parts. Part 1 focuses on the events that took place in teaching the class as a whole. Part 2 presents a case study of five learners who, because they had serious problems, both attitudinal and other problems, received special attention and additional support. The study had two main aims. The first was to respond to…

Language attitude studies have tended to assume that informants who listen to and evaluate speech stimuli are able to identify with consistent accuracy the varieties of English in question. However, misidentification could reduce the validity of any results obtained, particularly when it involves the evaluations of non-native English-speaking…

The paper problematises student writing as social practice from the perspective of lecturers' discursive practices. The paper uses data from a major study at a higher learning institution in Tanzania to explore lecturers' discursive practices and familiarity with the university orders of discourse including English medium of instruction, in…

This paper qualitatively documents and analyses the attitudes and identities of female students from the urban disadvantaged social class towards English and Hindi in the city of New Delhi. These attitudes include not only instrumental views of English but also the impression that it creates a new personality for an individual. English is part of…

Michael Woolf's article, "Come and See the Poor People: The Pursuit of Exotica," is a provocative critique of what he calls the "new orthodoxy" of promoting study abroad in non-traditional destinations. Woolf's underlying point is that the current emphasis on promoting student mobility to non-traditional, i.e. non-European, destinations "is…

The commerce faculty at the University of Cape Town (UCT) offers a 1-year, postgraduate management diploma that is regarded as a mini-MBA. It appeals to a wide variety of mainly English-as-second language (ESL) students. In the past, core course diploma lecturers in marketing, tourism and leisure, enterprise management and sport management…

Over the last century, the small Malay Islamic Sultanate of Brunei Darussalam, on the northern coast of Borneo, has moved away from an oral tradition, to a print culture and towards mass literacy. Discovery of oil in the early part of the 20th century transformed the economic situation in the country, and led to major changes and developments in…

This study compares quantitative and qualitative results for task-based second language (L2) grammar instruction conducted as whole-class, teacher-led discourse (TLD) versus small-group, learner-led discourse (LLD). Participants included 78 English-speaking adults from six university classes of beginning L2 Spanish, with two assigned to each…

This investigation examined the impact of opportunity to learn content and skills targeted by a writing assessment on the achievement of English learners (ELs), including the potential for differential impact of increased exposure to literary analysis and writing instruction. Results revealed several factors contributing to students' writing…

Employing critical discourse analysis (CDA), this paper examines the attempt to bridge a Canadian adult second language policy with an employment skills policy. The result is a third policy intended to improve language education and employment skills training for immigrants. The analysis reveals that the knowledge economy and human capital theory…

Simply taking foreign language courses and being exposed to the language does not guarantee successful and positive learning experiences. When examining factors that influence foreign language learning, motivation should be considered. To extend current foreign language literature, this study integrated self-efficacy and Gardners' AMTB variables…

Africa's educational systems are undergoing a quiet revolution. As these systems move away from working exclusively in the old colonial languages, usually English or French, bilingual schools which use local indigenous languages are springing up in many regions of Africa. This paper points out the historical processes driving the bilingual…

Studies investigating repetition in SL/FL learners' private speech have focused mainly on its cognitive and metacognitive functions. In the present study, the classroom observations, video-recordings of lessons, audio-recordings of six learners and two teachers and simulated recall interviews were conducted in Japanese language classes over two…