The present study was carried out in French immersion classrooms in an urban Quebec school board that is increasingly characterised by the heterogeneity of its French-dominant, English-dominant, and French/English bilingual student population. The study explored the extent to which a bilingual read-aloud project would (1) raise teachers' awareness…

This paper explores the role of language awareness (LA) in the learning experience of students on a one-year full-time master's programme in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) in Britain. It shows how LA drives their general English language knowledge and academic literacy skills, and supports an appropriate learner identity…

Non-linguists' perceptions of language in use are generally considered to be strongly influenced by evaluative factors: attitudes, values and ideology. Such a perspective represents a somewhat biased approach to ordinary people's knowledge about language, which is characteristic of both sociolinguistics and its sub-branch, perceptual dialectology.…

Linguistic accuracy plays an important role in the quality of written texts, yet the explicit teaching of linguistic form--particularly grammar--for the purpose of improving learners' writing has generated an ongoing debate. Furthermore, students' voices about their learning are often ignored because they are perceived as not knowing what they…

In this article, we explore one aspect of language awareness that has rarely been explored--awareness (i.e. perception) of the language proficiency of the "other learner" in pair work settings. We examine how Mai, a Japanese ESL learner, perceives her peer's L2 proficiency during pair problem solving, and how her perception of learner proficiency…

Drawing on Language Awareness (LA) approaches developed for francophone classrooms and a sociocultural theoretical perspective on language and learning that posits the genesis of new knowledge construction is situated in social interactions and shaped by socio-historical context, we conducted a small-scale case study of the implementation of LA…

With an increasing body of research on the roles of cognitive factors in SLA, the status of verbal reports as a cognitive measure is beginning to be established. However, little SLA research has assessed their validity in terms of reactivity (the effect of verbalisation on learners' performance). The current study investigates whether stimulated…

Studies investigating repetition in SL/FL learners' private speech have focused mainly on its cognitive and metacognitive functions. In the present study, the classroom observations, video-recordings of lessons, audio-recordings of six learners and two teachers and simulated recall interviews were conducted in Japanese language classes over two…

Corrective feedback (CF) has been investigated in relation to learners' error types that trigger CF and learners' responses to CF. These research findings generally suggest that recasts, the most frequently used type of CF, did not trigger learners' reformulation of their erroneous utterances very frequently. In these studies, however, teachers'…

This paper reports on a study which investigated the language-related experiences of Afrikaans-speaking South African immigrants living in New Zealand. In-depth narrative interviews with 14 parents of children aged 18 and under were conducted in various geographical locations across New Zealand. The focus was on their perceptions of their…

Examines personal narratives of immigrants to israel from the former Soviet Union. Interviews conducted in Russian reveal awareness that language is a status category and that the attitude towards minority languages is the Soviet Union has been transferred to the linguistic situation in Israel. In the situation of emerging bilingualism, immigrants…

Explores the adoption of aspects of Welsh social identity by members of an American college choir specializing in Welsh repertoire. Drawing on questionnaires, face-to-face and email interviews, and recordings of the choir in performance, a picture is built up of the singers' attitudes towards Welsh people, culture, and language, and their…

Investigates whether systematic links exist between young school-aged children's awareness of others' communicative intentions and early descriptive-expository and narrative writing proficiency. Young children were shown a directive speech act in a puppet-played scenario, and an interview determined the types of communicative intention attributed…

Explores the role of language awareness in the teaching and learning of languages within the framework of educational reform in Spain. Three different types of discourse are compared: the official curriculum, teachers' views obtained in interviews, and teachers' classroom practices. (Author/VWL)

Reports on a preliminary stage of a project funded by the Federal Office of Public Health in Switzerland to gain insights into physician-patient communication regarding Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and apply findings to their teaching programs. Particular focus is on aspects of communication relating to primary prevention of HIV and…