As the speakership of English worldwide continues to grow, English language teachers are required to devise ways to prepare their learners for communicating successfully across cultures. As pragmatics is particularly tied up with culture, the ways in which individuals from different cultures will orient to pragmatic phenomena in their interaction…

A widely accepted theoretical premise in second language acquisition holds that learners must notice language form in order to learn it. This premise provides support for language instruction that integrates attention to language form with attention to content. Empirical research has shown this combination to be effective; however, little research…

The role of metalinguistic knowledge of language and knowledge of technical terms (i.e. metalingual knowledge) in second language (L2) learning and use is a matter of controversy in the field of Second Language Acquisition. This paper examines the development of these two types of knowledge in adult university-level learners of L2 Spanish, and…

This study is a report on the learning processes and outcomes of a reading course with a critical literacy orientation. Twenty-seven BA freshman English literature students (four males and 23 females) at the age range between 18 and 21 participated in a "Reading Comprehension 1" course at Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran.…

Based on sociocultural and contextual perspectives, this study examines how Japanese language learners perceive a conflict between their beliefs and actions when speaking the target language in the classroom context, and how these learners change their beliefs or actions to overcome the conflict. Data were collected during a second-year level…

Previous research into student teachers' knowledge about language concluded that overall the picture was fairly bleak. Such research focused on the knowledge about language that the student teachers possessed when they moved from secondary school education into Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programmes. However, few studies have investigated…

It is often asserted that UK school-leavers know less grammatical terminology than in earlier years. However, objective data on this supposed phenomenon are somewhat scarce. The study reported in this paper aimed to see whether and to what extent knowledge about language (KaL) has declined over three decades, and how this might relate to…

This study examines whether the process of interacting in a second language, versus observing others interact, may differentially affect learner's awareness of language. This study involved 26 university students of intermediate-level French. Two experimental groups, Interactors and Observers, engaged in three sessions of dyadic task-based…

Given the cross-cultural differences underlying interactional routines such as "How are you?" or "How was your weekend?", managing such routine inquiries can be problematic for second language learners. Based on data from an adult ESL (English as a second language) class, this conversation analytic study shows how learners develop their competence…

In this paper, we argue that second language (L2) reading research, which has been informed by studies involving first language (L1) alphabetic English reading, may be less relevant to L2 readers with non-alphabetic reading backgrounds, such as Chinese readers with an L1 logographic (Chinese character) learning history. We provide both…

Previous research has shown that learners of English might experience considerable difficulty when giving constructive criticism to peers in instructional settings. Unlike native speakers, they tend to soften their criticism far less frequently while aggravating it far more often, and thus require pedagogical help in this area. The present study…

This paper reports on an innovative approach to oral language development in one British Columbia elementary school, in the context of a larger-scale research project aimed at building cultural inclusive classrooms through the development of imaginative teaching practices. A number of approximately three-week units were designed to lead students…

This paper considers the issue raised in 2008 by Gillian Brown in her article "Selective listening" regarding whether nouns are "privileged" in memory over verbs during listening tasks, and whether attention to nouns, at least in the early stages of L2 learning, is a desirable strategy to be taught to learners, as Brown suggests it might be. The…

In a world in which online reading is becoming increasingly common and, as a consequence, online literacy more and more necessary, this paper focuses on possibility of training L2 (second language) readers to bridge the gap between paper reading and online reading. Many researchers believe metacognitive awareness to be the most important ability…

This study is part of a larger investigation of the usefulness of instruction designed to raise cross-linguistic awareness in young Francophone learners of English in Quebec. In the research reported here, the focus is on cognates. Since previous research shows that learners typically fail to recognise many helpful similarities between words in a…