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This study examined content-area classes conducted in Korean EFL students’ L1 (Korean) and L2 (English), in order to examine whether such immersion/CLIL program may or may not be forfeiting students’ content learning at the expense of L2 learning. By comparing the teacher talk of Korean and native English-speaking elementary teachers teaching math and science, focusing on the amount and depth of content knowledge delivered as well as the amount of scaffolding included, this study shows that the L2-medium content classes did not cover as much or as high-level content knowledge as the L1-medium classes. The teachers in the L1-medium classes provided more scaffolding and encouraged deeper thinking and active participation as well. The findings are discussed in terms of students’ language proficiency and language-learning context.

The use of the English language varies considerably all over the world: as a foreign language in some places, but as a nativized and a primary second language in others. This global variation in the use and standing of English in communities and regions can impact the linguistic identity of English speakers in those places. The present study investigated the intricate role of a nativized variety of English in the linguistic identity construction of multilingual and multiliterate persons. The study, a dual case study per se, aimed at the comprehensibility of South Asian nativized varieties of English in general, and the role of English in ethnically and linguistically diverse Indian society in particular. The two participants were speakers of Indian English. The results substantiated the fact that language and identity are two closely related social factors. The English language was an integral part of the participants’ linguistic identities and manifested itself in a number of ways with regard to their social identity and patterns of socialization. Thus, identities are multiple and people are capable of constructing as well as reconstructing multiple identities within and across Discourses.

The present study examined the stability of the general foreign language (hereinafter, FL) classroom anxiety construct across English, French, Japanese and Russian among Chinese undergraduate foreign language learners. Language majors learning simultaneously two foreign languages from three universities in central China participated in the study. They were categorized into three groups, one group learning English and French simultaneously, the other English and Japanese, and the third English and Russian. They reported the levels of general FL anxiety felt in each foreign language classroom by completing a questionnaire that included two Chinese versions of the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS, Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope, 1986), one for each language. Separate paired samples t tests were conducted within each group and one-way ANOVAs were performed between groups in order to measure the stability of the general FL anxiety construct across the four languages listed above. It was found that a statistically significant difference of overall anxiety levels existed across English and Japanese with the learning of Japanese provoking significantly lower levels of anxiety than English when both languages are simultaneously learned. The comparison between groups revealed that the group learning English and Japanese simultaneously perceived a significantly higher level of anxiety in English, the same first FL that all the three groups share, but a significantly lower level of anxiety in Japanese, the second FL, than the groups learning French and Russian as the second FL respectively. All the findings suggested that the levels of general FL anxiety may not be independent of the native languageforeign language pairing and may vary across languages according to the specific target language under learning.

This paper explores two major challenges facing students using English as a language of instruction (ELI) in secondary education and discusses some pedagogical principles teachers need to apply to help students meet these challenges. The two challenges explored are: 1) learning complex curriculum content; and 2) learning the complex language of the content, with academic language becoming a focus of learning. Three pedagogical principles are discussed: 1) plan from the content; 2) integrate content and language teaching; and 3) teach the language of the content explicitly. The paper presents three examples of secondary ELI pedagogy to illustrate how the challenges can be met by applying these principles. The three examples show how ELI teachers 1) model the language of the content to students, 2) elicit from students the language of the content, and 3) help students write the language of the content. In all the three examples, the ELI teachers identify the language of the content through knowledge relationships, suggesting that this can be an effective aspect of pedagogy in an ELI context. The paper uses data from four projects that researched ELI classrooms in Hong Kong and Xi’an in Mainland China.

In the present study, attempt has been made to investigate the effect of note-taking strategy instruction individually and its interaction with gender on the students’ academic achievement. To double check the hypotheses, a true experimental method and a survey were employed. The experimental-side data were fed into SPSS and analyzed using ANCOVA. The results revealed that note-taking strategy instruction, but not its interaction with gender, had significant effects on the student achievement. Using t-test, the survey data results indicated that Iranian professors and students had high positive attitudes toward the benefits of note-taking; also, mean differences between male and female respondents were not significant. The findings both theoretically and practically provide hints for teachers, students and future researchers.

Self-directed learning has been viewed as the key to human survival and it has also been set as the ultimate goal of university education (Briggs, 1999; Knowles, 1975). Also in the field of language education, researchers have stated that learner’s self-directed learning ability is the major goal in this field (Holec, 1981). Since language learning strategy is often seen as the tool for learners to exercise self-directed learning, and both language learning strategy and self-directed learning are proven to be significantly related to learner’s learning achievement, the purpose of this study is to understand young adult EFL majors’ selfdirected learning readiness and their language learning strategy use, and further identify the best language learning strategy predictors for selfdirected learning readiness. Findings of this study is hoped to serve as a reference for language educators and learners in cultivating successful self-directed language learners.

This article explores the construction of teacher identities through a narrative analysis of 12 EFL teachers pursuing TESOL graduate programs in the US. Using postsructuralist view of identities, the present study examines the narratives of 12 EFL teachers throughout their two years of studying in the US, the process that were involved as they negotiated multiple identities to be legitimate members of a US academic community. Narrative data were collected from in-depth individual interviews, focus group, and documents. The study found two major findings. First, although many have warned against the use of nativeness as a determining factor in constructing NNES teacher identities, the narrative analysis indicates that linguistic identities continue to be central in NNES identity construction. Second, teacher identities can shift. In the present study, the shift was particularly mediated by the critical pedagogies encountered in the program. Finally, the identity shifts led to some subjects’ concerns about navigating their way back to their home countries as US-trained teachers. Pedagogical findings of the findings will also be addressed.

This action research aims to solve pressing day-to-day problems in communication faced by four expatriate Japanese adult learners who are residing in Sabah, Malaysia after retirement. The Japanese language sound system is different from that of the English Language. As such some of its prosodic features such as stress, intonation and rhythm interfere with Japanese learners’ pronunciation of English connected speech. We embark on improving one of these factors, i.e. English rhythms, after conducting our initial action research. The intervention dealt with in this study is a shadowing technique which was originally developed as a training technique for simultaneous interpreting. It is embedded in an information-processing model propagated by McLaughlin (1978) who viewed second language learning as two performance behaviors i.e. controlled process, or automatic process. Four adult Japanese learners of English participated as the respondents in this study. Data was collected through learners’ reflective journals, tape recordings of shadowing, and observation. Five action core research cycles were implemented until the learners achieved their goal. The finding shows recognizable improvement of the participants in their pronunciation namely English rhythms. This is to a large extent attributed to the effectiveness of ‘shadowing’ technique used under close scrutiny using action research that created phonological awareness among the Japanese adult learners in this study.

Part-time faculty members provide an increasing amount of instruction in higher education institutions around the world. However, due to their marginal status, these teachers' professional development needs are often neglected. The current study attempts to find out how to better support part-time college English teachers in Taiwan. Using a questionnaire as the main instrument, the results show that these teachers yearn for more institutional support and professional development activities initiated by their departments. The author calls for more efforts to study and meet the professional development needs of part-time college English teachers.

This study explored different types of learning objectives inherent in Iranian guidance school English textbooks from the viewpoint of Bloom's taxonomy. The primary data in this study were the English textbooks taught in Iranian guidance schools at the present time. The study used Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives (1956) in analyzing the material found in Iranian guidance school English textbooks. A coding scheme was developed to make it possible for the researcher to use Bloom's taxonomy in codifying the data. The data was then analyzed to detect trends in the cognitive demands inherent in the above-mentioned material. Results from the codification of a total of 351 tasks and exercises showed that all of the items were concentrated in the first three levels of Bloom's taxonomy which are referred to as the lower levels of cognitive skills. In addition, a significant difference was found between the textbooks in their inclusion of different levels of cognitive skills. The results of this study can act as a guide to educational decision-makers, syllabus designers, and textbook developers who wish to modify their practice and materials in such a way as to achieve higher levels of learning objectives.

Analysts of curricular innovation distinguish two different versions. One is the documented curriculum, or the intended innovation, which presents idealized innovative prescriptions while the other is the realized version - that which is actually implemented in classrooms. This distinction reflects the complexity of curricular innovation which has been acknowledged by many researchers both in the mainstream education and in English language teaching and learning, especially in Asian contexts (e.g., Carless, 2001; Markee, 1997; Wang, 2008). This small-scale case study is an attempt to address the gap between curricular rhetoric and classroom reality by exploring how some teachers have implemented a curricular innovation in two Thai secondary schools. Data were obtained from classroom observation and in-depth interviews with eight teachers to identify what they believed about communicative English language teaching and the extent to which their classroom practices reflected their beliefs. In the course of the interviews, the teachers referred to a number of contextual factors which routinely constrained their practice, and this provides an opportunity for readers to consider the extent to which the same constraints to curricular innovation might occur in their own teaching and learning contexts.

This paper reports on a recent investigation into literacy practices in a formal IELTS (Academic Version) preparation course in Tehran. The purpose of this study was to look at class tasks that generate opportunities for developing written argumentative texts. The focus was on aspects of written argument literacy practices. Students whose first language is not English seek to continue their education in Englishmedium- universities. They are required to sit for the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) to evidence their language proficiency. Despite meeting the required IELTS band scores, a number of them face difficulties and may underachieve in academic requirements. To address this problem this study aimed to investigate and analyze class tasks. In particular it examined the development of academic argumentative writing. In this ethnographic study I taught and recorded an IELTS academic preparation class for five months. Classroom discourse analysis and Systemic Functional Linguistics were used to support the analysis. This paper discusses the objectives of the program and addresses the findings.