Self-directed English Language Learning Through Watching English Television Drama in China

This paper presents a case study of a group of Chinese ESL learners in China, who study English by immersing themselves regularly and rigorously in English television drama. A self-directed learning pedagogy has been developed and discussed, which seems to have signposted an effective and economic way for ESL learners to improve linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic competence beyond the language classroom.     

课堂互动与二语学习的关系

课堂互动为二语学习者提供了类似母语的教学环境，增加了学习者的可理解输入，有利于二语学习。对课堂互动中教师话语、纠错方式，国外有不少实证研究。课堂互动的实施方式以任务型教学、小班授课和小组活动为主。课堂互动是二语学习的方式之一，但不是惟一的方式。同时这种方式并不适合各种层次的学习者。了解这一点对我们英语教师十分必要。     

非英语专业学生ESL课堂展示教育叙事研究

非英语专业学生ESL课堂展示是建构主义、输出理论和自主学习理论框架下学生展示自我英语综合能力的一种有效途径,也是教育叙事研究的主要内容之一。通过对ESL学生课堂展示情况的问卷调查和个案分析,可以看出ESL课堂展示的必要性及其对英语教学的启示。     

Does Student Language Ability Affect the Assessment of Teacher Language Ability?

This article arises from an investigation into the classroom language assessment (CLA) component of the Hong Kong English language benchmark test for lower secondary (Grades 7–9) teachers of English as a second language (ESL). After some background to the benchmarking initiative in Hong Kong and to the CLA test, the article describes a small-scale study into the effect of student levels of ability on grades awarded to teachers working in schools with differing ability intakes. In the study, a group of ESL teachers were videotaped teaching ESL classes at two different student ability levels, with the two sets of videos assessed by trained CLA assessors. Results indicate that, although there is some variety in the grade awarded to the two different classes taught, variation in grades may well be attributable to individual teacher performance rather than to external factors such as the ability levels of the students being taught. The grades awarded were generally consistent, irrespective of whether classes of high-ability students or low-ability students were being taught.     

Assessment purposes and procedures in ESL/EFL classrooms

University instructors’ classroom assessments play a central role in and inevitably influence their teaching and their students’ learning. This paper reports on a comparative interview study conducted in a range of three ESL/EFL university contexts in Canada, Hong Kong and China. Six major aspects of ESL/EFL classroom assessment practices were explored: instructors’ assessment planning for the courses they taught, the relative weight given to course work and tests in their instruction, the type of assessment methods (selection vs. supply methods) that they used, the purposes each assessment was used for, the source of each method used, and when they used each method. University instructors were also asked to indicate what they saw as the advantages and disadvantages of the methods they used, and whether they took into account prior student knowledge when making decisions about what assessment methods to use. The findings contribute to a better understanding of ESL/EFL university instructors’ classroom assessment practices at the tertiary level in a range of three ESL/EFL university teaching contexts.     

Imaginary Community of the Mainstream Classroom: Adolescent Immigrants’ Perspectives

In this paper, I explore the perspectives of three adolescent Mexican English language Learners regarding their high school English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom experiences within an urban city in the southwestern part of the U.S. An additional purpose is to demonstrate how the three student participants did or did not invest their identities into the imagined communities of the mainstream program. The paper focuses on two major themes: (1) The ESL classroom provided a socially comfortable learning environment with little cognitively challenging material, and (2) The ESL class/program did not meet students’ expectations for their future careers. Due to the students’ disillusionment with the ESL program, despite its many strengths, they projected their hopes onto an imagined community of the mainstream program. This research can be of use to both teachers and researchers interested in understanding adolescent immigrants’ perspectives on their ESL schooling experiences.     

Strangers and Professionals: Positioning Discourse in ESL Teachers’ Work

English Language Learners (ELLs) usually spend most of the school day with regular classroom teachers. The ability of English-as-a-second-language (ESL) teachers to help these students, then, depends in part on their ability to influence how the classroom teachers think of ELL students and ESL itself. One way ESL teachers do this is through “positioning discourses”—discursive practices that connect the children in certain ways to neighborhood reputations, political imagery, policy priorities, and professional responsibilities. This paper examines how ESL teachers in two contrasting school systems produce different kinds of positioning discourses in responding to different contextual constraints and pressures. Drawing on interview data, we show how teachers in an urban setting use elements of neighborhood reputation to position their students, while teachers in a more affluent suburb use discourses of expertise and professional knowledge to reshape the way ESL is understood. Our goals are to explicate how these discourses are produced and used.     

Language Teacher Identities in the Southern United States: Transforming Rural Schools

Foreign language (FL) and English as a Second Language (ESL) teaching present considerable challenges in the rural U.S. South. Local language ideologies, budgetary considerations, and challenges in other curricular areas (e.g., math and science) lead to marginalizing both FL and ESL in schools. This article examines the personal and professional trajectories of in-service language teachers in K–12 settings in the state of Mississippi to better understand how participants conceptualize their practice and their roles in schools. By analyzing the interview discourse of nine teachers, we found that both ESL and FL teachers positioned themselves against dominant ideologies and educational policies and constructed themselves as agents of change in the classroom, school, and community at large. This study contributes to the argument for integrating FL and ESL in rural areas, where both groups need support, and provides suggestions for ESL-FL teacher collaboration in rural schools.     

Gender and Language Use

Linguistic forms used by male and female contrast to different degrees in all speech communities.This heated and controversial topic of language and gender has evoked a considerable amount of research and discussions from various perspectives.Thus,this paper pro vides comprehensive definitions around gender in sociolinguistics.It also summarizes and synthesizes the relevant research considering gen der differences in language use.Lastly,it investigates the connection between gender studies and ESL classroom teaching and puts forward several practical and feasible recommendations on the applications of this concept to the professional teaching in TESOL classroom.     

“I Want to Do Things With Languages”: A Male Karenni Refugee’s Reconstructing Multilingual Capital

This article discusses how a male Karenni refugee in the United States has constructed multilingual capital along the way of his multiple movements across national borders. As a member of an ethnic minority group in three different countries (Burma, Thailand, and the United States), he has invested in learning multiple languages throughout the movements. Based on a two-year ethnographic study on the participant’s multilingual practices, I argue that being multilingual is a fundamental part of his transnational identities, economic security, and agentive acts. His roles outside formal classroom settings as a language broker, refugee, and an ESL tutor have been shaped by a continuum, or horizontal relationship of languages. The study suggests the inclusion of adult students’ transnational identity and multilingual practices outside a language classroom. In addition, a career that requires multilingual skills and transnational knowledge should be encouraged and created for newcomers.     

澳洲ESL课堂教学的特点及对我国英语教学的启示

澳洲ESL课堂教学以交际为手段,以学生的兴趣和需要为宗旨,呈现出一体化、时事化、人文化特征。全文在具体评介这些特征的同时,针对性地分析了我国英语教学中存在的不足,以期改进之。     

课堂互动理论与ESL学习关系浅析

本文探讨了课堂互动与英语作为二语(ESL)学习的关系，介绍了国外对课堂互动研究的成果以及实施课堂互动的任务型教学的成效，指出了课堂互动教学实施的条件极其局限、以及具体实施的困难。     

Critical Practice in Community-Based ESL Programs: A Canadian Perspective

In this article I examine a number of conceptual priorities for critical practice and their potential application in community-based English as a Second Language (ESL) programs. I begin by outlining a brief history and development of community language programming in Canada and Toronto. Based on these origins, I argue that community-based ESL pedagogies should be informed by educational discourses that are more socially and ideologically focused. I then discuss key concepts such as community and identity and their relevance to classroom concerns, after which I propose that community ESL be conceptualized as a form of critical practice, comprised of both a transformative and reflexive dimension. These 2 dimensions of critical practice are then explained and developed in respect to a lesson on the 1995 Quebec referendum on sovereignty and the related issue of how notions of citizenship are addressed in ESL. From this example of community-based ESL, I conclude with a few generalizations and suggestions for other language programs.     

交互性与儿童英语教学

儿童英语教学的主要目的是为了培养他们的交际能力。交互性又是交际性语言教学的关键所在。教学中各种不同的交互,交互在儿童英语教学中具有重要性。     

ESL TEACHER EDUCATION ABROAD AND AT HOME: A CAUTIONARY TALE

In this article, we compared teacher attitudes and beliefs about culturally appropriate language teaching resulting from an examination of two groups of preservice teachers. One group of preservice teachers enrolled in an English as a Second Language (ESL) study abroad program in Mexico; the other enrolled in a traditional on-campus ESL program. Our findings indicate that study abroad students gained a more empathetic understanding of language and cultural issues that affect language learners than their on-campus counterparts, but that they also developed some misconceptions about language learning based on their study abroad experience.     

巧搭“支架”，优化教学——基于对一个美国ESL课堂观察的分析与思考

“支架”在课堂教学中起着辅助学生学习的至关重要的作用。要在一个真实的课堂里搭好“支架”,仅仅遵照支架式教学理论给出的步骤是远远不够的。教师们往往会在构建“支架”的过程中遇到形形色色的问题。通过对一个美国ESL课堂的观察和分析,给教师们如何在课堂中运用支架式教学法提出建议。     

Serious game-based word-to-text integration intervention effects in English as a second language

Word-to-text integration (WTI) is the ability to integrate words into a mental representation of the text and is important for reading comprehension, but challenging in English as a second language (ESL). However, it remains unclear whether WTI can be trained in seventh grade ESL learners, who often struggle with reading comprehension and display large individual differences. To pay attention to individual differences, the present study examined an adaptive computer game-based WTI-intervention. The intervention, replacing 50 min of ESL classroom instruction, comprized a 12-week program in which students had to complete WTI-based assignments within four serious games, targeting morphosyntactic awareness, translation of words within sentences, recognizing idioms from words in contexts, and a filler game targeting dictation. The intervention group (n = 164) was compared to a control group (n = 166), who only received regular ESL classroom instruction. Both groups completed the following reading measures: decoding, morphological, and syntactic awareness, WTI (argument and anomaly reading speed and processing), and reading comprehension tasks at the beginning (T1) of the school year and at the end (T2) of the school year. Results demonstrated an intervention effect on decoding and anomaly processing as reflected by an interaction between time (T1 vs. T2) and group (intervention vs. control) in a repeated measures MANOVA. Follow-up mediation analyses for the intervention group only - with game performance as mediators between reading measures at T1 and T2 - indicated that students with better T1 scores on reading measures showed more growth in performance within games. More performance growth within the translation game and the idiom recognition game was related to better reading scores at T2. Both high-achieving and low-achieving students displayed performance growth within games, indicating that a WTI intervention yields promising results for a broad variety of ESL readers.     

利用报纸进行ESL/EFL课堂教学初探

利用报纸进行外语教学可以给语言学习者带来不小的收获。将报纸引入ESL／EFL课堂教学要注意“六记”和“六忌”。以此为前提，可以设计出内容丰富、形式多样的听说读写课堂活动。     

Better serving the needs of limited English proficient (LEP) students in the mainstream classroom: examining the impact of an inquiry‐based hybrid professional development program

In this study, the authors examine the impact of an English as a second language (ESL) professional development offering designed to meet this challenge: the Modular Design for English Language Learners (MODELL) instruction program. The authors were part of a team of faculty that designed and developed this hybrid professional development program to support classroom teachers challenged with assessing and addressing the educational needs of limited English proficient (LEP) students. The authors theorize that observing and describing the trajectory and complexities of the professional development process might offer significant insights for teacher educators regarding ways to prepare teachers for working in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms. What was discovered through this study was that the teachers learned a lot about themselves and what they were capable of doing in the classroom; they learned that their peers struggled with similar issues and that out of this camaraderie, a solid support network could be established; and they learned that the multicultural classroom environment could be an asset to teaching and learning.