Describes how the author intentionally exploited students' strengths with linguistic play to allow them to use those strengths in processing their learning through literature and textual response in various content areas. Shows how informed teachers can use inventive language-play (especially limericks) as an important literacy-related strategy…

Focuses on a number of episodes in intercultural communication in which there is some degree of mismatch between the intentions and interpretations of the interlocutors. Three concepts are used to illustrate the nature of these mismatches: the concept of common ground, the principle of indexicaity, and the concept of cultural models. (Author/VWL)

Reports findings of a study that has begun to tap the communication awareness of 460 Welsh and English adolescents. Examines sex differences and indicates practical ways findings of the study may be revealing and useful. (Author/VWL)

This article presents the findings of the first linguistic analysis of sign language interpreting carried out in Australia. A study was conducted on 10 Australian Sign Language/English interpreters to determine the rate and occurrence of interpreting omissions and the interpreters' level of metalinguistic awareness in relation to their production…

This article evaluates the efficacy of explicit genre-based instruction by sensitizing the ESL learners to the concept of genre. The main questions addressed are: How does sensitizing ESL learners to the rhetorical move structure of a genre, the communicative purposes of these moves, and linguistic features that realize these moves help them to…

Postmodern globalization requires that students strive for competence in a repertoire of English varieties as they shuttle between multilingual communities. From this perspective, the current debate becomes irrelevant regarding whether local varieties or dominant varieties (British/American) be used in international proficiency tests. Because it…

This study addresses the role of output in second language (L2) acquisition by comparing processing instruction (PI) to communicative output (CO) tasks. Participants included 80 English-speaking adults from six university course sections of beginning L2 Spanish, with two assigned to each treatment (PI = 27; CO = 28) and two others comprising a…

This paper argues for the integration of the lexical approach with a data-driven corpus-based methodology in English teaching for technical students, particularly students of Engineering. It presents the findings of the author's computer-aided research, which aimed to establish a frequency-based corpus of student engineering lexis. The Student…

In this article, I address the miracle of human language from a socio-cultural perspective, emphasizing the role that language, and more explicitly, the critical study of language, can and should play in developing reflective, socially and politically aware and responsible teachers, administrators, and students. The article begins by examining the…

Purpose: This study examined the relation between African American preschoolers' use of African American English (AAE) and their language and emergent literacy skills in an effort to better understand the perplexing and persistent difficulties many African American children experience learning to read proficiently. Method: African American…

This paper reports a study employing stimulated recall protocols to investigate how L1 English-speaking learners of L2 German use their metalinguistic knowledge during the resolution of selected form-focused tasks. Verbal report data from 10 university level learners were analysed to gain insight into explicit knowledge in action during controlled…

Discusses the tradition of argument about what forms of metalinguistic discourse are valid, useful, and significant in the era of modern Western linguistics, with particular reference to the argument between linguistic science and prescriptivism. The article emphasizes that linguistic norms are open to challenge and change about what their nature…

Revives Eric Hawkins' idea of a language "trivium" where language awareness activities should fill the space between the learner's two languages. Draws a distinction between awareness and consciousness of language and suggests that cross-linguistic relationships are a major source of input salience strengthening, due to bilinguals'…

Native and nonnative speakers of English listened to a nonnative speaker's reading of well-formed sentences and those containing grammatical errors of three types. Identified errors were judged for gravity on a 5-point scale. In a second experiment, subjects identified error types and rated them for gravity and annoyance in an aural task; they…

Reviews the nature of processing instruction (PI) and the research that has been conducted on it since 1993. Concludes that Batstone's (2002a) analysis and critique of PI is unfounded and that PI captures his given-to-new principle via the feedback learners get during instruction. (Author/VWL)