Reacting directly to the fact that even the best syllabus is worthless to the student who does not read it, this essay draws inspiration from research of the past decade, especially from the learning-focused syllabus concept that was introduced by three researchers at the University of Virginia, and uses a questionnaire to gauge our community…

In this narrative inquiry, the author dramatises the tensions and discoveries that emerged in a literature course for pre-service and in-service teachers in an English education graduate programme. The students' resistance to the instructor's choice of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" as a central text led to reflection on responsible and…

This study analyzed some student-centered strategies used in three secondary classrooms in a large, urban high school in US. The researcher, who was teaching a graduate methods course at the local university, conducted classroom observations and follow-up interviews with three teachers enrolled in the class. The teachers learned about different…

The teaching of grammar has been strongly debated for decades, often with reference to an alleged decline in the 1960s. This article takes a historical perspective on grammar, or knowledge about language, within English Education. In the eighteenth century, Adam Smith's "Lectures in Rhetoric and Belles-lettres" offered a discernibly…

This study focuses on the place and role of the humanities, especially the liberal arts in emerging economies which rely vastly on the development of national skills and expertise. It is based on one example of a publicly funded university in Oman where the urgency of creating a skilled workforce has led to an exercise in aligning higher education…

This paper starts by reporting on the design and trialling of an informal, low-stakes test designed to assess the knowledge of grammar terms of pre-service primary school teachers following the UK's National Curriculum, the results of which were used to inform the design of a series of optional grammar classes. The test proved surprisingly…

Purpose: Students in Turkey have difficulty reaching fluency in English. Affective factors in teaching English are as important as cognitive factors. Perceived self-efficacy, an affective factor, is known to influence learning a second language. This study explores the effects of a university preparatory school's English curriculum on its…

In this article, the author wonders when the use of the term "trenches"--which carries with it negative connotations--became a euphemism for teaching first year students, and considers how tenured or full-time faculty teaching first-year courses could be a simple solution to student retention by providing institutional support for…

This paper gives a brief summary of Halliday's theory of how children learn to talk, illustrating the development of children's language from the microfunctions through the macrofunctions and into the metafunctions of adult language. The paper points to a possible source of the misinterpretation of Halliday's theory in the work of Frank Smith…

This article reports the results of a survey of UK Higher Education Institution (HEI) providers of undergraduate degree programmes in English. The survey solicited HEI providers' views on how well each of the A Levels in English prepares students for degree programmes, and asked which of the three A Levels are included in the entry requirements…

In this article, the authors describe how integrating music with reading and writing practices stimulated transmediation to (1) honor musical students' identities, (2) deepen readers' meaning making with literature, and (3) invite writers' memories to generate emotional grist for composing poetry. The authors share examples to inspire teachers to…

Recent catastrophic school shootings have drawn worldwide attention to issues of gun control and mental health. In the wake of these tragedies, more and more schools have begun to adopt school-wide social and emotional learning (SEL) programs. However, we have few examples of what it looks like to integrate SEL skills into content curricula.…

The research purposes were to: 1) develop lesson plans for content-based instruction; 2) evaluate the students' perceptions of the effectiveness of content-based instruction; and 3) investigate the effects of content-based instruction on English language performance of Thai undergraduate students in a non-English program. The sample group was 19…

This study adds to the currently limited evidence base on the efficacy of interventions targeting non-college-ready high school students by examining the impact of Kentucky's Targeted Interventions (TI) program. We focus on interventions that students received under TI in the senior year of high school based on their 11th grade ACT test scores.…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to reflect on pedagogical strategies which support the teaching of critical analysis of visual and multimodal texts in a tertiary-level course for Arts students. Design/methodology/approach: The paper describes strategies which focus on developing students' abilities to express interpretive critique, as…