Proposes an approach to teaching British Studies in an English Language program for foreign students at the University of Lancaster in England. Teachers use ethnographic methods to get students to become "outsiders" in their own culture as a means of teaching them how to assimilate the target culture. Course material is appended.…

Proposes a model for rural education based on the progressive practices of a rural school in Israel in the early 1900s. Desirable characteristics of rural education are organized into four innovative educational models: education for work (including agricultural education); community education; social-ideological education; and curricular autonomy…

A study with 181 beginning-level college students of French investigated the effects of sentence-level native-language (L1) translations on retention of second-language (L2) vocabulary presented in a context designed to promote inference rather than word-to-word translation. Research was conducted to address the specific design of software for…

Discusses four components of the classroom environment found to play an important role in the successful participation of children learning English as a second language. Those components are: a physical environment that is organized, inviting, and accessible; inclusion of materials and artifacts from many cultures; opportunities for community…

Compares Queensland teachers' conceptions of communicative language teaching with those held by 11 Japanese junior high school teachers of English, interviewed in 1997 as part of a s part study on the development of language teaching in Japan. (Author/VWL)

Presents an analysis of recorded weekly discussions between British student language teachers and their school-based mentors. Results found that, despite individual preferences and interpretations, all mentors supported principles related to positive classroom management, building relationships with pupils, maximum use of the target language, and…

This paper applies the findings of doctoral research undertaken in the Northern Territory. It draws on extended interviews with nine Indigenous students studying at university to produce four findings for classroom learning and teaching, one of which highlights the need to recognise Aboriginal English as a focal point of the curriculum for both…

Over the past decade, the concept of "community" has been at the center of reform in literacy education. Most literacy educators agree that community-oriented environments are critical for students' literacy learning, yet many have difficulty building these communities in multicultural and multilingual classrooms. In this article we draw upon the…

Elementary teachers Fay and Whaley share anecdotes of how carefully listening to English language learners read--and discussing with them their errors and confusions--helps teachers better analyze such students' true language and reading abilities. They discuss the importance of spending time talking individually with each child learning to read…

Spelling competence in English L2 is not the result of specific teaching and training. Two questions are discussed in this article: How do Dutch learners manage to gain control of this complicated system? And what spelling knowledge is acquired? Because beginning learners lack the necessary prerequisites for a phonological strategy, it is claimed…

Following publication of the National Languages Strategy on 18 December 2002 the teaching of foreign languages (FL) in the primary school is again high on the agenda in England as in other parts of Europe. Research has shown in the past (Burstall "et al.," 1974) that an early start in FL does not necessarily result in any long-term…

This paper considers speakers' differing degrees of self-confidence in their bilingual abilities and their effects on reported language use and observed patterns of language choice. One hundred and twenty individuals from New Zealand's four largest Pasifika communities--Samoan, Cook Islands, Tongan and Niuean--reported on their self-confidence in…

This article is representative of a larger body of work on reflective narratives and narrative reflection that has been ongoing for a number of years. The authors have pursued various iterations of the research topic in various classes at various institutions. They have documented that students focus on skills and attitudes that place them in…

The paper discusses a blended learning concept for a university teacher training course for prospective teachers of English. The concept aims at purposeful learning using different methods and activities, various traditional and electronic media, learning spaces covering contact and distance learning, and task-based learning modules that begin…

The present study examines pragmatic production of monolingual (L1 Castilian) and bilingual (L1 Catalan, L2 Castilian) learners of English in a foreign language learning context, that of the Valencian Community in Spain. We particularly focused on proficiency-level effects and on the role of the task type in the use of request acts peripheral…