This article draws from practitioners' experience and from scholarship in a variety of disciplines to construct a rationale for incorporating what we call "critical role-play" in the English-for-academic-purposes (EAP) classroom. We discuss the historical significance of role-play in TESOL and explore why this type of pedagogy has become less…

In academic environments, reading is assigned not simply to transmit information; students are required to take the information, and based on the task set by the instructor, assess, analyze, and critique it on the basis of personal experiences, prior knowledge, and other readings (Grabe, 2009). Thus text-based comprehension (Kintsch, 1998) alone…

Although it is a well-known fact that students' preferred learning styles vary, many instructors teach in the way that reflects their own learning style preferences despite the fact that mismatches in teacher-learner styles may result in lower student achievement. In a traditional ESL or EAP writing class, students who prefer to learn by reading…

Despite the growing popularity of action research, bridging the gap between data collection and reflective data analysis still lacks a well-developed methodology. As a supplement to the traditional action research procedure for language teaching, I adopted a method called expansive visibilization (EV), which has the potential to be a reflective…

This qualitative policy study focuses on the implementation and perceived effect of a recent language policy making English a compulsory subject in primary Cycle One (grades 1-2) in Francophone public schools in the province of Quebec. Based on the analysis of narratives from interviews with four teachers, three resource teachers, and two…

Media literacy education has become increasingly present in curricular initiatives around the world as media saturate our cultural environments. For second-language teachers and teacher educators whose practice centers on language, communication, and culture, the need to address media as a pedagogical site of critique is imperative. In this…

This study explores the roles of depth and breadth of lexical repertoire in L2 lexical inferencing success and incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading. Students read a graded reader containing 13 pseudo-words and attempted to infer the meanings of underlined target words. The Word Associates Test (WAT, Read, 2004) and the Vocabulary…

Responding to a gap in relevant literatures, this study explores cooperating teachers' perceptions of their roles and responsibilities as contributors to the practicum experiences of preservice teachers of English as a second language who were pursuing a master's degree. Research tools featured focus group and individual interviews with 11…

This follow-up study reexamines the state of the teaching of pronunciation in ESL classes across Canada. The purpose of the survey was twofold: to gain a snapshot of current practices and to compare this with the picture of 10 years ago. We based the current work on Breitkreutz, Derwing, and Rossiter's (2001) survey asking teachers about…

Exploring learners' processes of memory and analysis has captivated considerable attention among language-learning researchers due to the recent prevalence of key concepts from feeder disciplines such as cognitive psychology and phraseology. However, there has been little empirical effort to describe the nature of interaction between these two…

How do ESL teacher-candidates grapple with beliefs about language during their professional training? In this article, we present the findings of a qualitative research study conducted in a large eastern Canadian university Bachelor of Education program. As Johnson (2010) has recently noted, despite extensive research and theoretical work that…

The purpose of this article is to describe the sociocultural learning of 40 second-year students in a Bachelor of Arts in English-as-an-additional-language (EAL) program in Auckland, New Zealand. These learners participated in a teaching and learning intervention involving journalized community placement. The study illustrates how reflective…

International graduate students are coming in ever-growing numbers to English-speaking countries. Educators have long believed that the successful English-learning experience of these students in their home countries will naturally lead to success in their academic studies and social life abroad. However, this may be not true. Using my…

In this article we share our experiences of using poems in teacher-training courses where the students are predominantly second-language learners. We describe how we tried to help learners engage with a creative text through its language and meaning. We share our experiences of helping to facilitate the open expression of opinions and feelings in…

The claim that the words "for," "and," "nor," "but," "or," "yet," and "so" (FANBOYS) constitute a complete list of English coordinating conjunctions is examined though syntactic analysis and found wanting. This analysis is presented as an illustration of the need for teachers constantly to question the choice of material that we present to our…