Linguistics

Sharing My Own Second Language Learning Experiences

Because I have engaged in diverse second language studies over many years at numerous institutions, I have experienced the pedagogical […]

Formal and informal discourse markers There seem to be so many discourse markers used in spoken English that it is

Although heavy emphasis is typically placed on word formation, especially inflection and derivation, in most ESL/EFL curricula, only a small

In their introduction to chapter 9, Celce-Murcia et al. (1996) assert that ESL instructors should “teach their learners (1) how

I will devote this post to the question of Standard English in light of John Simon’s claim that “language can always

A Few Thoughts on Task-Based Instruction
I appreciate Belgar and Hunt’s (2002) attempts to integrate a task-based syllabus into the English as a Foreign Language curriculum of the Japanese university where they worked. No doubt, as the researchers pointed out, the students involved benefited from this
Focus on Grammar
Although the field of language education has seen many advances during the last two decades, especially when it comes to acknowledging the roles social interaction and cultural identity play in the language teaching and learning process, I fear the same
Learning to Teach
Left: Richard preparing a “lesson” for great aunt Evelyn (October, 1980: Beckley, West Virginia) Right: Richard and sister Crissy working on a “test” using Aunt Evelyn’s manual typewriter (December, 1983: Beckley, West Virginia) Below: Betty McDorman (image from 1978 Coal
Focus on Pronunciation and Fluency
When I studied phonetics and phonology for the first time in the early 1990s, the academic focus was almost entirely on the segmental aspects of the language’s sound system. We reviewed the articulatory and acoustic traits of each consonant and
The Dilemmas of Language Assessment
I would like to share my experiences with language assessment in my current instructional context–an intensive English program for international students at a large language school in Miami, Florida. We conduct formal assessments using a full-length simulated TOEIC (a norm-referenced