This symposium article, to which three authors contribute distinct parts, presents the rationale for standards-based language assessment and examines both the uses and misuses of language assessments in English-speaking countries that are engaged in standards-based education reform. Specifically, they focus on the assessment of emergent bilinguals…

In this essay, the author argues that English language learners (ELLs) can meet and exceed the Common Core State Standards, and that more complex materials are in fact precisely what they need. Lack of access to such materials is what prevents ELLs from attaining full proficiency in English.

Much has changed for today's language learners. The people, artifacts, and popular culture of a target language are often highly accessible to language learners and teachers, despite geographical barriers. This accessibility, of course, is possible through mass media and electronic forms of communication. This is phenomenal. But with this…

This article discusses the use of a reading curriculum designed to incorporate all of the proven practice components of reading as suggested in the United States National Reading Panel report (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000). These practices are phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.…

Cognitive Linguistics (CL) makes the functional assumption that form is motivated by meaning. CL also analyses form-meaning pairings as products of how cognition structures perception. CL thus helps teachers to fit language to the nature of the cognition that learns whilst devising modes of instruction that are better attuned to the nature of the…

In this ethnographic self-reconstruction, the author represents the ways in which he negotiated the differing teaching practices and professional cultures of the periphery and the center in an effort to develop a strategic professional identity. He brings out the importance of using multiple identities critically for voice in the wider…

One reason for teacher attrition is that a gap exists between pre-service teacher preparation and in-service teacher development, in that most novice teachers suddenly have no further contact with their teacher educators, and from the very first day on the job, must face the same challenges as their more experienced colleagues, often without much…

This forum article describes a postgraduate certificate teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) program with a strong linguistics orientation and argues that such a program provides novice language teachers with knowledge and skills superior to those of programs which focus more on methodology and practicum experience and less on…

Language teachers spend much of their time providing corrective feedback on students' writing in hope of helping them improve grammatical accuracy. Turning to research for guidance, however, can leave practitioners with few concrete answers as to the effectiveness of written corrective feedback (CF). Debate in the literature continues, reflecting…

This is a two-part discussion. Part 1 is entitled "English Language Learning in Subject Lessons", and Part 2 is titled "Video as a Research Tool/Counterpoint". Working with different research concerns, the authors attempt to draw attention to a set of methodological and theoretical issues that have emerged in the research process using video data.…

Narratives of classroom life--the type that blend analysis with artistry, in the form of plays, poems, stories, and the like--remain relatively uncommon within language education research. Yet such narratives have the potential to make a significant and timely contribution to the field, given the ways in which knowledge is being reconceptualised…

This article uses data from life-history interviews with English language teachers in Chile and California to illustrate methodological processes in teacher identity research through narrative analysis. To this end, the author describes the steps she took in identifying an issue to be examined, selecting particular narratives as representative of…

Universities in the United States and elsewhere are increasingly enrolling an elite group of international students who not only are able to pay the high tuition and other expenses of U.S.-based universities, but also are personally familiar with several countries and cultures. These students are part of a new global economic and cultural elite.…

Evaluation is far from being a neutral process. In recent years, tests have commanded increasing influence, which in turn, has broad implications for both individuals and society (Crusan, 2010b). One purpose for testing--writing placement or "where to put students" (Yancey, 1999, p. 485)--has presented particular challenges, especially in writing…

Teachers' work is changing rapidly worldwide but is rarely a topic of sustained focus in the literature on teaching English as an additional language. Despite this lack of robust scholarly attention, ESL, bilingual, and content specialists working in primary, secondary, and tertiary contexts contend with the demands of changing demographics and…