This research study investigated how the teachers and students at a Persian heritage language class acknowledged and modified their affective behavior based on the affective feedback they received from one another. The notion that interactants can modify their affective output in such fashion is referred in the literature as affective alignment…

Unpacking a dialogic speech event that took place in an ESOL teacher education class, this article explores an instance of struggle over ascribed, commonsense meanings that include some U.S. Americans and exclude others. The incident--what Fairclough (1992) has called a "moment of crisis"--turned out to be a powerful, transformative experience in…

Since non-native English speaking teachers (NNESTs) are always compared with native English speaking teachers (NESTs) on linguistic grounds, their strengths and weaknesses as English teachers are worthy of investigation. This paper reports on a mixed methods study which examines the strengths and weaknesses of NNESTs and NESTs through the…

This article provides a comprehensive quantitative analysis of misspellings in the writing of fluent Spanish heritage language (SHL) learners enrolled in a university-level Spanish course. The corpus consisted of a total of 21,322 words and 2492 misspellings, which were divided into four main categories and several subcategories. This paper…

This article reports on a study that comparatively investigated the differences and similarities in the (incorrect) use of cohesive devices by second-year and fourth-year undergraduate Chinese EFL learners in their argumentative writings. Via detailed analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data, this study seeks to reveal if the patterns of…

This article will reflect on the risks of a careless application of "safe-talk", a fruitful analytical concept that has been widely used in classroom discourse studies to link chorus-like repetition sequences with certain institutional and social processes related to either post-colonialism or migration. The discussion will draw on a…

This article examines several "language practice" interactions among adult immigrant students in an ESL classroom in the U.S. from the perspective of performativity theory. In drawing on performativity theory, it conceptualizes such classroom interactions, along with the research practices used to investigate them, as constitutive actions. That…

While Hebrew education maintains a dominant position in Jewish educational contexts, little research has looked at what the practice of Hebrew language education looks like on a daily basis. Drawing from an 18-month ethnography of junior high school students attending a private non-Orthodox all day school, this article critically examines the ways…

This paper addresses the role of multimodal fluency in establishing agency in the second language classroom. The focus of the paper is on the semiotic resourcefulness of an English Language Learner in an English as a Second Language classroom in the United States. Framed from a social semiotic perspective, fine grained multimodal analysis of…

This study examines the discursive construction of adequate English proficiency through error correction in citizenship classrooms. In particular, the microanalysis of corrective sequences demonstrates that such proficiency is viewed narrowly--as a practical tool for passing the naturalization interview and not necessarily a tool for broader…

Stephen Krashen's theories can appear "seductive" to teachers of languages, in that they identify a seemingly clear way forward for language acquisition in the classroom. However, reification of Krashen's theories, in particular the notion of attaining "i+1" through comprehensible input, is demonstrated to be problematic. Based on empirical data…

This study investigates the oral academic language used by English as a second language prepared teachers during content area instruction in five upper elementary classrooms in the United States. Using ethnographic and sociolinguistic perspectives the authors examine the oral, academic language exposure students received from their teachers during…

This study describes how a novice ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages) student teacher successfully navigates an instructional path in a one-on-one tutoring session with a second grade student. We document the student teacher's strategies to both engage and disengage her student, who alternately resists and cooperates throughout the…

For over 15 years now, various commentators have highlighted the 'monolingual bias' inherent in SLA and TESOL research, which invariably constructs bi/multilingualism in deficit terms. In contrast, these critics have advocated an additive bilingual approach to SLA and TESOL, albeit, not as yet to any great effect. In this paper, I explore why so…

Linguistic instrumentalism, which underscores the importance of English skills for work and for achieving individual economic success, has influenced language education policies and proliferated the language teaching and testing industry in Japan. Linguistic instrumentalism is linked to the notion of human capital (i.e., skills deemed necessary…