This article reviews questions that non-native (NNEST) and native speaker (NEST) teachers, working in different contexts, have about pronunciation teaching. It draws on theory, research, and practice to answer those questions as far as possible. The data was collected across two projects that investigated teachers' cognitions: their knowledge,…

Just as forming letters is the motor skill component of writing, pronouncing--forming sounds and other features of the spoken language--is the motor skill component of pronunciation. The motor task for L2 (second language) learners is to invent for themselves the actions needed for pronouncing L2, either from matching a model they hear (goal…

Lexical bundles, recurrent multiword combinations in a register, are extremely common and important discourse building blocks in academic writing. An increasing number of studies have investigated lexical bundles in academic writing in recent years, but few studies have explored L2 learners' interpretations of their own bundle production,…

This research investigates non-native English teachers' engagement with the native speaker model, i.e. whether they agree/disagree with measuring English teaching and learning performance against native speaker standards. More importantly, it aims to unearth the impact of teacher education on teachers' attitudes and beliefs about…

Language teacher education programmes can be viewed as "change" programmes, particularly in their endeavours to re-shape cognition. However, often such programmes are found to be relatively ineffective in this regard. As a means of facilitating the desired change, trans-national language teacher education programmes, in which students…

Developing English for communicative purposes is a key objective of language classes in many parts of the world. As a logical prerequisite to communication practice, learners need to have Willingness to Communicate (WTC) before they will engage in L2 interaction (Macintyre et al., 1998). Teachers can play an important role in helping learners to…

In the 4/3/2 activity learners deliver the same talk three times under increasing time pressure. The activity is intended first and foremost to foster fluency, but accuracy and complexity have also been said to benefit from this activity. The present study investigates whether immediate repetition of monologues under increasing time pressure…

The knowledge and beliefs that teachers hold are an important determiner of what happens in the classroom. Ideally teacher cognition should be informed by research and theory about effective language learning. This paper examines the beliefs related to vocabulary teaching held by a cohort of 60 Malaysian pre-service teachers engaged in a…

This paper reports on interviews conducted with 36 teachers involved in university preparation courses at language teaching centres in New Zealand. The interviews were designed to investigate teacher attitudes to extensive reading in higher educational contexts, and current practice in such contexts. While teachers expressed positive beliefs about…

Needs analysis is an issue of major concern for courses of English, both for English as a Second Language (ESL) and as a foreign language (EFL). In my study, I examined two EAP programmes at two universities--in New Zealand and Vietnam--to see if needs analysis receives any attention in these two programmes, and, if so, how needs analysis is…