Pennington and Richards (2016) argue that if the medium of instruction (MOI) is not the native language of the instructor, lack of proficiency in the MOI could bring about a lack of confidence. This study inquired how native Japanese as a Foreign Language (JFL) teachers at tertiary institutions in New Zealand and Australia perceive their English…

Chinese is now a global language because of the global flow of Chinese people throughout the world. This development provides an important intellectual basis for engaging in the transnational exchange of Chinese theoretical knowledge. The argument developed here is that learning from international (and migrant) research students from China is a…

This multidisciplinary collection examines the connections between education, migration and translation across school and higher education sectors, and a broad range of socio-geographical contexts. Organised around the themes of knowledge, language, mobility, and practice, it brings together studies from around the world to offer a timely critique…

In this paper, a series of vignettes is used to explore important current challenges in TESOL. These vignettes are drawn from many different settings, including Bengali-, Pahari- and Chinese-speaking children in UK primary schools, speakers of Aboriginal English in Australia and Chinese teachers of English on courses in Higher Education. A number…

The Grammar Gang blog has now passed its fourth anniversary as a borderless, non-proprietary language and learning online classroom. It gives wing to the aspirations of academic staff from four universities to explore language and learning across hemispheres. The Blog's recent birthday provides a timely opportunity to explore how this…

The current concern about low levels of English proficiency among international students who graduate from degree courses--that students' English language skills are not being developed during their higher education experience--reflects negatively on the quality of Australian higher education and its graduates. More careful selection of students…

Discusses some of the conceptual problems underlying distinctions between native and nonnative speaker, between foreign and second language learners, and the related difficulty of eliciting valid and reliable data about language background. Problems are illustrated with reference to a scheme developed in Australia involving the classification of…

Describes a project that aimed to provide target language experiences for second and third year Spanish as a foreign language learners in Australia. The project involved exposing students to native Spanish speakers. Findings show that students made a noticeable improvement in communicative competence, and they became more knowledgeable about…

The Slavonic languages are well represented among the community languages of Australia, though few maintain a place in the school curriculum, and only Russian is an independent discipline in Australian universities. The article discusses Slavonic languages and cultures and their presence in Australia. (SM)

Explores theoretical and practical issues surrounding authenticity in course-based assessment, drawing on data from a university-level Japanese language course in Australia. Examines a teaching and assessment activity based around interviewing native speakers outside the classroom, which was designed to optimize authenticity. (Author/VWL)

This study examines the role of task-based conversation in second language (L2) grammatical development, focusing on the short-term effects of both negative feedback and positive evidence on the acquisition of two Japanese structures. The data are drawn from 55 L2 learners of Japanese at a beginning level of proficiency in an Australian tertiary…

Examines the use of e-mail to facilitate second language acquisition in an immersion education setting, with particular focus on an e-mail exchange between college students of Japanese as a second language in Australia and native speakers in Japan. Suggests that e-mail is a potentially valuable medium in language learning and could be useful in…

An Australian study examined the role of language background and gender in the assessment of native and non-native English-speaking university students enrolled in physics courses. Attention was given to differential performance and was analyzed in relation to test-item type and level of student communication skills. Implications for academic…

Presents some policy issues regarding Chinese language courses for students whose mother tongue is Chinese or a dialect of Chinese. (five references) (Author/CK)

Discusses language data from the Australian 1991 Census that indicates the vast resources available in languages other than English. Notes that two of the tenets of Australia's various language policies are language maintenance and the development of Aboriginal and community languages as well as the provision of opportunities for learning…