Sinclair (1991) found that lexical analysis can be overcomplicated, yet Johns (1994) called for investigation into whether corpus analysis can motivate beginners and near-beginners. The findings of this research suggest that young EFL learners can enjoy using corpus analysis tools (wordlists and concordances) to identify, classify, and generalize…

The practicum as a learning opportunity for prospective teachers of ESL or EFL remains underexplored. Most of the studies that have been documented in the TESOL practicum literature were conducted in either North America or a few Asian contexts with novice teachers. In this study the author used diaries by five Vietnamese EFL student teachers as…

Previous studies about writing assignments in higher education have explained that the library research paper, report on experiment, summary, and article/book review were the most common writing assignment tasks assigned across disciplines. No previous studies have explored writing tasks in the TESOL discipline at a national level. In this study…

This research studies an elementary classroom of all English language learners (ELLs) for the use of forms of gesture without speech for private communication. This private-public modality allowed the teacher to attend to individuals without significant disruption of her concurrent speech. Students also used this modality in various contexts as…

Most spoken texts that are used in second language (L2) listening classroom activities are scripted texts, where the text is written, revised, polished, and then read aloud with artificially clear enunciation and slow rate of speech. This article explores the field's overreliance on these scripted texts, at the expense of including unscripted…

"English" classrooms in U.S. institutions of higher education are not linguistically homogeneous. It is not logical, ethical, or realistic to designate "standard" English as the only discourse acceptable for the writing classroom. This praxis-oriented article chronicles a U.S. composition instructor's process of…

Intercultural communication classes for TESOL students give them a solid foundation for their work with their own ESOL students. This article presents the cross-cultural project that TESOL students have to complete in a required intercultural communication class at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and the case study that was used to…

Teachers of English as a second language (ESL) are often on the frontline of working with adult ESL learners who are facing a difficult developmental pathway to academic and/or economic success. These learners come to the task of learning English with widely varying schooling experiences, degrees of first language literacy, and English language…

Presentation assignments for second language speakers can take several forms, such as a traditional class presentation or a poster presentation. Poster presentations, which are given repeatedly to small groups, seem to have several advantages, including increased speaking opportunities, more interaction between the speaker and the audience, and…

This qualitative study reviews the effects of real-time captioning on vocabulary acquisition of a novice elementary English language learner (ELL). Triangulation of data was completed through review of teacher journaling, captioning transcripts, and student pretest and posttest assessments. Results illuminate improved retention and usage of…

In efforts to maintain America's global competitiveness in the knowledge-based economy, teacher professional development has moved to center stage. With increasing numbers of English language learners (ELLs) in U.S. schools, several states have adopted mandatory professional development for classroom teachers to equip them with the knowledge…

English as a second language (ESL) classrooms in the United States increasingly include students who have had exposure to more than one global context of English. Unless explicitly discussed, the variations within global Englishes can lead to confusion and obstruct learning. In addition, sometimes teachers fail to acknowledge the Englishes that…

In the last decade, international teacher recruitment has accounted for an unprecedented number of nonnative-English-speaking teachers (NNESTs) from around the world hired to work in public schools in urban areas in the United States. However, the worldwide trend of international teacher recruitment, and its implications for issues of language,…

For nonnative English speakers, taking a standardized English proficiency test seems inevitable, because the scores achieved play an important role in such life events as admission to a school, gaining a scholarship, or securing a job. Considering their importance, it is imperative that such tests be not only valid and reliable, but also fair.…

Parallel to the growing recognition of English as an international language, the fundamental premises of the TESOL discipline (e.g., the ownership of the language, native speakers as a goal and model of competence for learning and teaching, linguistic standards and language variety/ies to be taught, monolingual/monocultural approach to teaching)…