Instructional pragmatics in teacher education is generally focused on ways that ESOL teachers can develop the pragmatic competence of L2 learners. However, as every interaction in an English medium classroom requires a high level of pragmatic competence on the part of teachers themselves, it can also be conceptualised more broadly to encompass the…

In this paper I discuss a study that involved incorporating instructional pragmatics into an ESL Methodology course. Graduate students who were taking an ESL Methodology course were required to read the literature on interlanguage and instructional pragmatics and teach requestive speech act strategies to Taiwanese EFL students through…

In this article, we describe and model the language classroom as a complex adaptive system (see Logan & Schumann, 2005). We argue that linear, categorical descriptions of classroom processes and interactions do not sufficiently explain the complex nature of classrooms, and cannot account for how classroom change occurs (or does not occur), over…

This study investigated five Korean ESL graduate students' access to and utilization of professional and social resources in the process of socializing into American academic writing discourse. As a pilot study for a larger scale research study, data for the present study were collected during a four-month period through interviews. Findings…

This research investigated the use of a measure of expressive vocabulary to monitor the development of preschoolers learning English. Over 1200 preschoolers whose primary language was Somali, Hmong, Spanish, or English were assessed three times during one year using an Individual Growth and Development Indicator (IGDI) for Picture Naming, a…

This article describes the implementation of technology-mediated tasks in an English for academic purposes (EAP) curriculum at a Japanese university. The course addressed the needs of English majors at the school by enabling more efficient completion of academic work, including essay writing. One way that technology supported this goal was through…

Authority in the classroom is an important concept to teachers everywhere. The act of teaching continuously engages them in the negotiation and construction of an identity that is accepted as authoritative by their students. Identity and authority, however, are in conflict in the context of NNSTs ["non-native" speaker teachers] of English (and…

One challenge for many international teaching assistants (ITAs) is improving their spoken English fluency after arrival in the U.S.A. It may be argued that poor fluency, with its hallmarks of slow speech rate, false starts, and particularly pauses that violate phrasal boundaries, account for the failure of many ITAs to be certified by their…

Feedback plays an intervention role in the writing process. It is through feedback that writers are guided to achieve negotiated writing goals. Feedback encourages a process of discovery and this plays a developmental role in the writing process. In this paper, we report on three case studies that sought to understand cognitive processes when…

This article reflects upon foreign-language education in Iran. Contrary to its political and historical reputation in the world, Iran has not been well presented regarding its educational system in general and its foreign-language education in particular. Of course, a critical assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the Iranian education…

There is a substantial research base, mainly in mainstream education, acknowledging that teachers have a great impact on student achievement. However, as far as we know, little if any empirical evidence exists to enable us to determine which set of English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher characteristics correlates with positive student…

This paper provides an account of social integration and professional recognition of non-English-speaking-background (NESB) teachers of English in Australia. The case study profiles two Iranian postgraduate students of English teaching in an Australian university and describes their struggle to construct a social and professional identity. The…

This study began with the supposition that teaching English drama through dramatic performance could enhance English literature students' knowledge of drama at university level. The research was conducted over a whole academic semester with 60 intermediate students enrolled in English drama II courses. They were divided into two groups of…

This paper takes a social constructivist position of culture, identity, and classroom discourse in exploring the "culture talk" of international students in a university English for academic purposes (EAP) course. The analysis focuses on the interactional work being accomplished by the students as they participate in a classroom task about…

While literature-based instruction has been highly praised for its pedagogical benefits, it confronts entrenched learning hindrances, both linguistic and cultural in EFL settings. Whether the literature instruction in practice is motivating or demotivating is an issue worthy of concern. In response to the issue, this paper examines a literature…