This study compares the willingness to communicate (WTC) of Canadian Anglophone and Francophone students to measures of their self-assessed, multiskilled second language proficiency and strategy use before and after a short-term intracountry bilingual exchange experience. The central question is whether a student's WTC exists before an opportunity…

The International Curriculum for Chinese Language Education (ICCLE) represents a significant initiative by the Office of Chinese Language Council International (Hanban) to organise and describe objectives and content for a standardised Chinese language curriculum around the world. It aims to provide a reference curriculum for planning, a framework…

For students of Indonesian, learning to identify base words is very important, but can often be quite tricky. This article describes how one of the authors used interactive digital content from The Le@rning Federation (TLF) together with an extensive range of offline activities within an intercultural language learning (ICLL) framework. It helps…

Research has found that literacy in the first language of a student of English as a second language (ESL) aids in the acquisition of English, but there has been little exploration of the processes that underlie this. This pilot project investigates children's experiences of literacy in their first language (Hebrew), instruction in strategies…

Outlines the preferred learning styles of students studying second languages, offering suggestions for their application in second-language classrooms. The paper describes the right-brain/left-brain theory and how the two brain hemispheres are involved in learning; presents four classroom strategies (diversification, contextualization,…

The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) National Professional Development Program helped language teachers familiarize themselves with the Languages Profile and collect and annotate work samples using the Profile. Their experiences become the basis for disseminating information among ACT language teachers. The paper presents recurrent issues raised…

Sociodramatic play, which combines role play and dramatization, is suitable for elementary and secondary language classrooms. It is learner centered and caters to varying language abilities. Children draw upon their existing experiences as the basis for their play. Teacher input is essential. The paper examines advantages and disadvantages of this…

Advocates the use of simulations in second-language classrooms, examining their advantages and presenting data from a study on college students' perceptions of the effectiveness of these advantages in an advanced second-language classroom. The study indicates that students found simulations enjoyable, motivating, and effective in promoting…

Suggests that language awareness, or consciousness raising, has great potential in second-language learning. Language awareness presents students with linguistic data so they can work out grammatical rules for themselves. Offers a variety of examples of possible language-awareness lessons, first for the teaching of English, then for the teaching…

This first of a two-part article looks at the language learning-acquiring distinction, discussing the consequences of teaching at either end of the learning-acquiring continuum. Describes the distinction between the two, discusses the learning versus acquiring of grammar, and compares the two. The second part of the article will focus on memory…

A major change in British language teaching is in emphasizing the use of language; knowledge of rules and vocabulary is insufficient if a student cannot communicate. This paper discusses five ways in which this idea is being introduced: in language functions, discourse, testing, reading and teaching in the foreign language. (CHK)

A brief paper noting some of the great Japanese literary translators who rendered Western and other foreign classics into the Japanese language. (CK)

One teacher's experience using student-written texts as a basis for testing other students has become a good way of integrating the four language skills in a natural progression and in pinpointing students' language weaknesses. Using students' texts has also reinforced the importance of choosing visual materials carefully. (MSE)