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Aquest article presenta l’experiència de planificació i desenvolupament d’una intervenció didàctica per millorar la competència literària d’un grup d’alumnes de segon curs d’educació primària. S’analitza el paper de mediació que exerceix la mestra en activitats de diàleg al voltant de la lectura de diversos àlbums il·lustrats, centrant-se en dos aspectes: d’una banda, en la creació i utilització d’un recurs didàctic per fomentar l’expressió dels infants en clau literària i, de l’altra, en les intervencions de la docent com a participant i guia en el transcurs de les discussions.----------------------------------------------------- Este artículo presenta la experiencia de planificación y desarrollo de una intervención didáctica para mejorar la competencia literaria de un grup de alumnos de segundo curso de primaria. Se analiza el papel de mediación que ejerce la maestra en actividades de diálogo sobre la lectura de álbumes ilustrados desde dos ámbitos: en el aspecto de creación y utilización de un recurso didáctico para fomentar la expresión de los niños en clave literaria y en la vertiente de participante y guía en el transcurso de las discusiones.------------------------------------------------------This article presents the experience of the planning and development of a didactic intervention to improve the literary competence of a group of primary education second course students. The role of the mediation exerted by the teacher in dialogue activities revolving around the reading of various illustrated albums is analyzed from two different scopes: on the one hand, the creation and usage of a teaching material to promote the expression of children in a literary way and, on the other hand, the role of the teacher as a participant and a guide throughout the discussions.

Reseña de The Mind on Paper: Reading, Consciousness and Rationality, por David Olson.

Aquest article presenta l’experiència de planificació i desenvolupament d’una intervenció didàctica per millorar la competència literària d’un grup d’alumnes de segon curs d’educació primària. S’analitza el paper de mediació que exerceix la mestra en activitats de diàleg al voltant de la lectura de diversos àlbums il·lustrats, centrant-se en dos aspectes: d’una banda, en la creació i utilització d’un recurs didàctic per fomentar l’expressió dels infants en clau literària i, de l’altra, en les intervencions de la docent com a participant i guia en el transcurs de les discussions.

This paper describes a case of the practical application of thematic analysis to organise and interpret qualitative data on the presence of technological contents in the field of translator training in Spain. Thematic analysis allowed us to identify and interpret key ideas (themes) within the data sample obtained from a corpus of module syllabi from undergraduate degrees in Translation and Interpreting (T&I) in 2019-2020. This paper presents the study from a purely methodological perspective. It explains in detail the different phases of thematic analysis according to the model proposed by Braun and Clarke (2006), together with the decisions taken in each phase. This is part of a broader research project that aims to map the current situation of technologies in the academic field (undergraduate degrees in T&I) and in the professional market of translation in Spain, when digitisation is directly impacting the demands of the translation industry.

In addition to its widespread use in various disciplines, LL has garnered attention from researchers in education for its role in enhancing language learning and promoting linguistic diversity. However, its systematic integration into language teaching contexts, particularly in high school settings, remains limited. This paper aims to demonstrate how LL-centered activities were designed for integration into an 11th-grade English classroom in a public high school in southeastern Turkey. Over a 12-week period with 32 students, three LL-oriented tasks—Designing a job advertisement, Creating a T-shirt design, and Crafting a ‘Wanted’ sign—all aligned with the curriculum were implemented. Following the stages outlined by the pedagogical model of Linguistic Landscapes in Second Language Teaching and Learning (LLinL2TL), LL activities were systematically integrated. The objective is to provide a comprehensive illustration of the step-by-step integration of LL resources into high school English classrooms, supplemented by sample student works to offer a clear overview of the process. The study concludes by offering recommendations and implications for language education professionals.

In the light of ongoing international debate about the purpose of explicit teaching of grammar, this paper considers the relationship between metalinguistic understanding and development as a writer. Drawing on a cumulative series of studies over a period of ten years, adopting a functionally-oriented approach to grammar, the paper argues that purposeful grammar teaching occurs within the teaching of writing, not divorced from it; and that this teaching develops students’ metalinguistic understanding of how written texts are crafted and shaped. In this way, grammar is positioned as a resource for learning about writing and one which can support students in becoming increasingly autonomous and agentic decision-makers in writing. We show through practical examples how the pedagogy works in practice, and through classroom interaction data we highlight how metalinguistic talk (metatalk), which enables and encourages the verbalisation of choice. The data also shows, however, that teachers’ skill in managing metatalk about metalinguistic choices in writing is critical in framing students’ capacity to think metalinguistically about their writing and to be autonomous writerly decision-makers.

Over the course of two centuries (since 1807), the Czech lands have seen fundamental changes in the paradigm of special L1 didactics for pupils with vision impairments (hereinafter the VI). The individual didactic transformations often found theoretical backgrounds in special education approaches simultaneously designed across Europe (especially in Austria, England, former Yugoslavia, Italy, Hungary, Russia, etc.) and accentuated respect for the special teaching requirements of pupils with VI. The embrace of specific European approaches usually depended on the general (especially political and social) context of the period, which also had an impact on the aims and tasks of special language teaching. The paper defines the historically shaped aims of L1 teaching for pupils with VI and contextualizes them in order to understand the current aims.

In this paper, we addressed the concept of classroom participation and the way it is affected by a traditional teacher-centred (TC) approach and a more innovative learner-centred (LC) approach which uses the principles and strategies of active learning and cooperative learning to engage students in the learning process. The study was carried out in a public secondary school in Spain with two groups of learners of English (n=54). The analysis of the number of learners on task showed that in the LC sessions learner participation increased by 20 % as compared with TC sessions. We also detected some challenges a teacher might face while implementing learner-centred sessions including the facilitation of equal participation in group work, adequate time allocation for a task, individual and group assessment, and development of learners’ autonomy.

This paper reports on a survey which sought to identify the state of the art in the practice of telecollaboration in Europe. It was the first large scale survey carried out on the practice of telecollaboration in Europe and was carried out as part of the European Commission funded project, INTENT - Integrating Telecollaborative Networks into Foreign Language Higher Education. Also known as Online Intercultural Exchange (OIE), telecollaboration engages groups of foreign language learners in virtual intercultural interaction and exchange with partner classes in geographically distant locations. Much research has been carried out on telecollaboration, though this comprises largely of small-scale studies on single telecollaboration projects. The aim of this paper is to discuss the findings from the final report on the survey, provide recommendations for decision-makers and teachers based on these findings and present the UniCollaboration website that was developed largely on the basis of the findings. The paper ends with a brief comparison of the INTENT survey results to findings from two other OIE projects: eTwinning and the COIL Institute for Globally Networked Learning in the Humanities.

Despite the surge of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) studies in many areas, assessment practices in CLIL contexts are considered to be much unaccounted for (Poisel, 2007; Hönig, 2009, Maggi, 2012). This paper intends to become a contribution to this area and addresses the issue by approaching to the case study of a Science through English CLIL unit implemented on a state-funded secondary school in Barcelona, Spain. The paper focuses on the written test of the unit and analyzes the students’ responses and degree of satisfaction of the teacher after implementing and correcting the test, which provides valuable insights in the light of teacher development and offers a snapshot of CLIL assessment practices and their effects. The results present a close look at the teacher’s attitude towards content and language errors and points out the lights and shadows of assessment in CLIL while highlighting the need of disclosing further assessment practices in similar contexts.

Tradicionalment s’ha pensat que la traducció com a eina a l’aula de llengües estrangeres va quedar desaconsellada en el mètode directe. Així, des de llavors, molts docents han defensat la idea que la traducció és un recurs nociu per ensenyar idiomes, encara que, segons Cook (2010), no hi ha evidències que ho hagin provat científicament. Abans de continuar acceptant aquesta creença heretada del mètode directe, pensem que és necessari revaluar si la traducció va ser rebutjada per tots els seus exponents i si va ser realment possible excloure-la de les aules del moment. Per tant, l’objectiu d’aquest article és dur a terme una revisió teòrica sobre què va ser, quan i per què va sorgir el mètode directe, quin paper es reconeixia a la traducció dins d’aquest mètode, quina posició van adoptar els principals teòrics que el recolzaven i si aquests plantejaments van ser vertaderament aplicables a l’aula.

This paper aims at exploring the complexities of students’ interaction in a collaborative learning task set within a CLIL unit in the EFL classroom. By way of illustration, a sample from a 4th year classroom grade in a secondary school of Catalonia has been collected. The paper examines, through the students’ outcome, the impact of cooperative learning in a content-rich information swap task and discusses the role of content and language integrated learning in the classroom. This paper concludes with several implications for research and practice.

This paper is a comparative analysis of "The Storyteller", by Saki, “Cuento de la niña condecorada” by Jorge Ibargüengoitia and "Super Dooper Jezebel" by Tony Ross: three works aimed directly or indirectly at younger readers, which share a single archetype or motif: that of the obedient, overly perfect young girl who behaves more like an adult than a child. This examination of the similarities and differences between the three versions of the good-girl story, from the perspective of reception theory, highlights the role played by the implicit reader as an intrinsic element of the work's artistic make-up. Using different resources, and from their very structure, the three works conjure up the presence of an active reader who sees events coming, sets off the ironic and humorous games, uncovers meaning, interprets and, above all, generates that magical alliance between work and reader that breathes life into the text. This paper traces the steps of a pre-determined reader in three stories that condemn a character who, in the quest for perfection, falls into the horrific trap of embodying it.

Lexical bundles (LBs) have been described as the ‘building blocks of discourse’; in addition to being highly frequent in writing and reducing processing time for readers and writers, they also perform important functions in language. LB choice, however, can vary according to genre, discipline, and different sections of the same text, which poses a challenge for novice L2 writers. This paper explores the use of LBs in a learner corpus of bachelor dissertations written in English by Spanish L1 students in linguistics and medicine, and compares it with published research articles in the same disciplines. By focusing on the introduction and conclusion sections, we identify the most frequent 3-, 4- and 5-word bundles in the corpora, to later study their types, structures, and functions. The results show differences in the use of LBs across disciplines, genres and sections, suggesting pedagogical implications for the inclusion of LBs in the L2 writing curriculum.

Poland’s foreign language teaching and language policy have been affected by tremendous changes in the last decades. Not only bilingual sections in secondary schools have mushroomed, but also international schools with instruction in a foreign language, mainly English, within the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) started their existence in 1993. This paper draws on the translanguaging pedagogy as used in the selected secondary schools with IBDP. The schools provide evidence for the stance that most students, if not all, are multilingual in such teaching environments. Therefore, they apply multiple strategies to benefit from their linguistic repertoires. In addition, the teachers perceive such practices as positively affecting the students’ performance and allowing them to more rapidly acquire the imparted content as well as further develop their linguistic proficiency. The overriding aim of this study is to identify the situations when the students translanguage and analyze their linguistic behaviour as well as explore the functions of students’ translanguaging practices.

The focus of this paper is the analysis of data collected after conducting a telecollaboration project throughout one semester with 12 advanced learners of Spanish from a mid-sized Atlantic coast university in the USA and 12 higher intermediate students of English from a technical university in Spain. Data was collected through a questionnaire enquiring about learner expectations at the outset of the project and a final survey seeking detailed information about learner satisfaction in order to implement improvements in subsequent projects. In-depth analysis of the data shed light on the perceived benefits and challenges of the intercultural telecollaboration project. There was evidence that the students were very open-minded about discussing multifaceted intercultural issues and very positive toward collaborating with fellow students from a different cultural background. The surveys also suggest that the learners’ expected benefits aligned with their stated benefits after carrying out the project, which led us to believe that possible frustrations and communication breakdowns had been kept to a minimum.

El procés de globalització de les últimes dècades ha fomentat la valoració de l’aprenentatge de llengües estrangeres. En el context europeu, la llengua anglesa esdevé un objectiu prioritari en els sistemes educatius, que han anat introduint diferents programes bilingües. Un d’ells és el CLIL (Content and language integrated learning), en el que s’ensenya una matèria no lingüística en llengua anglesa. Aquest enfocament a dies d’avui es presenta com un gran repte pel professorat degut a la seva manca de formació. En aquest article s’analitza la interacció entre els alumnes i dues mestres que ensenyen l’anglès i les ciències conjuntament (cada una especialista en un camp) en una aula d’educació primària. Es pretén comprendre com es fa aquesta integració analitzant el focus d’atenció de les mestres i quin paper hi juguen els usos de les distintes llengües.

This paper deals with the use of readability metrics as indices of learmers' linguistic features in a written corpus of Spanish learners of English L2. Seventeen measures of readability are presented and computed for 200 samples of written argumentative essays extracted from the corpus NOCE (Díaz-Negrillo, 2007). Support Vector Machines (SVM) are used in order to detect which are the metrics that perform better at detecting differences in learners’ productions belonging to students enrolled in the first or in the second year of an English major. Metrics based on sentence length, number of sentences, and number of polysyllabic words are reported to be the most accurate ones for the classification of learners' linguistic features.

This paper explores tutor perspectives on ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) learners in the UK. Government policy towards ESOL is increasingly driven by an ideology in which citizenship is conflated with the acquisition of English language skills. Underpinning this way of thinking are concepts of Othering and deficiency. My research aimed to investigate how tutors “make sense” (Spours, Coffield, & Gregson, 2007; James & Biesta, 2007) of ESOL policy in the UK, how this informs tutors’ attitudes towards English language learners, and to understand the potential impact that such attitudes could have on learners. The study demonstrates that tutors are influenced in their attitudes towards their learners by the persistent external issues of funding and the contradictory discourse implicit in ESOL policy. Such attitudes can have a tangible effect on learners.

This article is based on my doctoral research, a qualitative study of a nihonjingakkō in Belgium where students choose either English or French after primary 3rd year. Nihonjingakkō is a full-time day school for children of Japanese sojourners. The study investigates the complex language ideologies circulating in the school. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the school principal and language teachers, and were supplemented by other datasets such as questionnaires and analysis of teaching materials. Drawing on the conceptual framework of imagined communities (Anderson 1991; Kanno & Norton, 2003), this paper attempts to illuminate the fact that English receives higher language status than French. However, this article will mainly focus on English. To conclude, Japan’s school and university entrance examination system can be seen to make students lose interest in learning foreign languages other than English.

In the Balearic Islands, where two official languages (Spanish and Catalan) co-exist, movements have been made to increase the role of foreign languages (English, in particular) at the expense of the regional minority language, Catalan. This paper presents findings from a case study investigating language policy at an International Baccalaureate (IB) secondary school in the Balearic Islands. Data were gathered through interviews and classroom observations. Findings suggest that, while the school site maintains a degree of autonomy over its language policy, the local, historical, social, political, and ideological context impact on the promotion of Catalan in the classroom. The results also illustrate the complex interaction between the implementation of governmental legislation, oversight of the IB Organization, and the interpretation and negotiation of policymaking by school staff at the classroom level and elsewhere.

This paper looks at forms of reflexivity and the moral positioning of social actors, displayed in conversational narratives about school conflict, co-produced by Latin American girls during sociolinguistic interviews with a female researcher of Latin American origin, in a multicultural school in the centre of Madrid. Understanding narratives as communicative practices makes them suitable discursive spaces for revealing the moral positioning and moral orders constructed in discourse. These discursive positionings need to be considered in the light of the ethnographic conditions under which such narratives emerge (Patino-Santos, 2016). Herein, I analyse narratives recounting conflicts from two different groups – female secondary school students and their teachers – based on the notion that it is in recounting and evaluating moments of conflict that social actors call upon their systems of beliefs and values. The failure of the girls’ secondary school and all the negative repercussions of such failure are central to problematising the social circumstances in which their narratives are produced.

Through weekly participant observations and eleven semi-structured interviews conducted with second-generation bilingual students in the Arabic for Native Speakers/Heritage Learners course at one of City University of New York’s (CUNY) senior colleges, I investigate the interdiscursive connections between the students’ notion of “broken Arabic” and the concept of “incomplete acquisition and/or attrition” (Montrul, 2013) from SLA research on heritage speakers. This paper moves away from the concept of proficiency towards performativity in order to recognize and support diverse repertoires in motion.

This paper analyzes salient issues that emerged over the course of a language policy action research course at the Graduate Center City University in New York. The course, embedded in the larger scope of the Futures Initiatives, allowed students to study different language communities across different campuses in New York. This piece describes these findings in light of language policy and higher education in super diverse contexts and argues for further exploration of language practices to inform the work of educators across different settings in higher education.

The cultural diversification of colleges and universities which initially targeted the needs of a specific minoritized group raises questions concerning the inclusion of every individual and the maintenance of the advances which have been made for the original population. This paper provides insight into the challenges and merits at the intersection of linguistic and racial/ethnic diversification within CUNY’s Medgar Evers College. Historically tied to the Black Campus Movement, the college is committed to being an agent of social transformation for the surrounding community. Aiming to understand the perspectives on language and diversity of the key stakeholders at the college, a number of semi-structured interviews were conducted. In terms of linguistic diversity, we found that there is tension between the adherence to the belief in an idealized ‘Standard English’, and the acknowledgement and support of linguistic variation. Regarding the college’s racial and ethnic climate, a perception of exclusion among non-black students of color became evident. Existing concepts as well as promising attitudes and practices among participants indicate some ways that could encourage all students to move from the margins to the center. We suggest that educators, administrators and staff at Medgar Evers should encourage dialogue and cooperation between linguistically and ethnically diverse students, both in and outside the classroom. At the same time the safe and empowering space for black students should remain intact. We also claim that further theorization of the diversification of predominantly non-white institutions is needed.

Over the past three decades, identity has become a key construct in applied linguistics and there has been a great deal of research focussing on language learner identities. Meanwhile, less research has been devoted to language teacher identities, although there has been an increase in recent years. This paper makes a modest contribution to this growing literature. It examines how two Spanish nationals developed Spanish language teacher identities while attending a Postgraduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) course at a London university.

The topic of pacing at the level of the individual class hour has received relatively little coverage in research literature. In order to provide a research-based take on the issue, the current work surveys the existing literature, develops terminology and draws a key distinction between macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of pacing, sequencing, grading, and transitioning. In order to focus on one of pacing’s constituent sub-topics—the allocation of classroom time—this article presents a case study of a first semester college-level introductory German class at a top-tier American university. The data come from two hours of class, one each from the beginning and end of the semester, in an attempt to discover not only how pacing affects teaching synchronically but also how it might change diachronically. Utterances and gestures were transcribed in order to segment the class into activities and sub-activities, and a model for using verbal and gestural cues to perform this kind of segmentation is proposed. The paper also discusses how the teacher allocates time to different kinds of activities, considering pacing strategies that help keep students focused and “on plan” and how these pacing strategies can allow for more time and activities spent on communicative, pair-based work. It is argued that because of the case study teacher’s focus on pacing and use of various strategies to pace the class, not only researchers but also teachers might be able to generalize the micro- and meso-pacing model described in this study to the pacing of individual lessons in their own classrooms.-------------------------------------------------------------------- L’anàlisi detallada del pacing en una hora de classe és un aspecte poc tractat en la literatura científica. Per garantir una perspectiva basada en resultats empírics, aquest estudi es proposa fer un repàs a la literatura ja publicada sobre el tema, desenvolupar-ne la terminologia i distingir clarament entre els nivells macro-, meso- i micro- de pacing, grading, seqüenciació i transicions. Per tal de centrar-nos en un dels subtemes principals del pacing, la distribució del temps de l’hora de classe, presentem un estudi de cas basat en una assignatura d’introducció a l’alemany impartida en una prestigiosa universitat nord-americana. Les nostres dades provenen de dues hores de classe gravades en dos moments diferents del semestre (inici i final), per intentar esbrinar com afecta el pacing a la docència no només sincrònicament, sinó també diacrònicament. S’han transcrit tots els enunciats i gestos per tal de segmentar cada sessió en activitats i subactivitats, i, així, proposem un model de segmentació basat en l’anàlisi d’elements verbals i gestuals. Aquesta recerca també considera la manera de distribuir els diferents tipus d’activitats en una sessió després de prendre en consideració estratègies de pacing que contribueixen a mantenir els estudiants atents i “on plan”. També es vol analitzar en quina mesura aquestes estratègies poden afavorir que es dediquin més estones i activitats a exercicis de tipus més comunicatiu, basats en la interacció entre parelles. Es considera que si el docent empra diferents estratègies per anar guiant el ritme de la classe i adopta metodologies de treball basades en el pacing, tant el professorat com la comunitat científica podran generalitzar el model de micro-pacing i meso-pacing definit en aquest article per a contemplar el pacing de cada hora lectiva a nivell individual. ----------------------------------------------------------------El análisis detallado del pacing en una hora de clase es un aspecto apenas tratado en la literatura científica. Para garantizar una perspectiva basada en resultados empíricos, este estudio se propone repasar la literatura ya publicada sobre dicha cuestión, desarrollar su terminología y distinguir claramente entre los niveles macro-, meso- y micro- de pacing, grading, secuenciación y transiciones. Para centrarnos en uno de los subtemas principales del pacing, la distribución del tiempo en la hora de clase, presentamos un estudio de caso basado en una asignatura de introducción al alemán impartida en una prestigiosa universidad estadounidense. Nuestros datos provienen de dos horas de clase grabadas en dos momentos diferentes del semestre (al inicio y al final), para intentar averiguar cómo afecta el pacing a la docencia no sólo sincrónicamente, sino también diacrónicamente. Se han transcrito todos los enunciados y gestos para segmentar cada sesión en actividades y subactividades, y, así, proponer un modelo de segmentación basado en el análisis de elementos verbales y gestuales. Dicha investigación también considera la manera de distribuir los diferentes tipos de actividades en una sesión después de tener en cuenta estrategias de pacing que contribuyen a mantener a los estudiantes atentos y “on plan”. También se quiere estudiar en qué grado afectan dichas estrategias para permitir que se dediquen más ratos y actividades a ejercicios de tipo más comunicativo, basados en la interacción entre parejas. Se considera que si el docente emplea diferentes estrategias para ir guiando el ritmo de la clase y adopta metodologías de trabajo basadas en el pacing, tanto el profesorado como la comunidad científica podrán generalizar el modelo de micro-pacing y meso-pacing definido en este artículo para contemplar el pacing de cada hora lectiva a nivel individual.

L’escola actual acull alumnat amb experiències sociolingüístiques i competències diverses en les diferents llengües amb què han estat en contacte. Tot i així, l’escola proposa l’ensenyament separat de les llengües, sense tenir molt en compte les pràctiques quotidianes de l’alumnat. En aquest text, es revisen algunes visions actuals del plurilingüisme, entès, d’una banda, com a capacitat de les persones de triar recursos adequats a cada situació, i, d’altra banda, com a repertori útil per fer front a problemes de comunicació. Així mateix, es discuteix el paper de les pràctiques plurilingües en l’adquisició de noves competències i la necessitat que la didàctica de les llengües incorpori activitats plurilingües en la programació de l’ensenyament.

An in-depth investigation is currently being conducted regarding English as a Second Language (ESL) learners’ motivation and its relationship to academic performance; these learners are all undergraduate students in Malaga University, pursuing a degree on English Studies. As part of this in-depth study, a comparative analysis was made between two student cohorts: a control group and an experimental group; the research instrument used was a questionnaire. This instrument measured students’ motivation and perceptions on the subject of English linguistics. While the control group attended their usual linguistics lessons, the experimental group learners were exposed to different activities in the middle of the lessons (the so-called routine breakers in this paper). Comparison between both groups shed some light on the issue of language learners’ motivation, indicating the positive effects of attention calls and group dynamics in the classroom. Likewise, various routine breaker ideas are offered and their benefits to the learners are explained.

Recent interest in teacher identity in general and language teachers’ identity in particular has shown that although identity research can be contentious, its examination can cast light on the process of teacher development. In fact, the role of identity in teacher development has been promoted as a key analytical framework. In this study exploring narratives elicited from interview data, I examine how a novice teacher develops more confidence in her role(s) as a teacher by recounting stories based both on her imagined identity as a teacher but also on her practical experience in the classroom. Along with the stories shared by the teacher, she intuitively reflects on her professional identity through the use of metaphors and anecdotes. These under-researched aspects of narrative inquiry are presented in the paper as symbolic discursive proxies that the teacher uses to carve out a space of self-definition within the teacher community of practice.

This paper presents a review of research in cognitive psychology on implicit and explicit knowledge and learning from the point of view of written French didactic, focusing on its silent morphology, in order to draw consequences for teaching. Standard grammar exercises are then examined for the type of knowledge they require: to what extent do they prepare the students to write and revise their texts ? We show that most exercises are not adequate to develop either explicit or implicit knowledge of grammar.. Finally, initial results of an experimentation of two types of activities developping explicit grammatical knowledge, no error dictation and sentence of the day, are presented. Results are positive: experiments in 21classes of primary and secondary education show a strong effect on the ability of students to achieve grammatical agreements in French.

This study aims to analyze the conversational movements use by twelve-year-old children to explain vocabulary in reading and writing situations with 4-year-old children. These situations were video recorded in a school where a child tutor program was held. The program was implemented in schools attended by children and adolescents from urban-marginalized backgrounds in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The data analysed in this paper includes 50 tutoring situations. The unit of analysis consists of exchanges in which the older child explains one or more words to the younger one or tries to elicit a precise word. The data analysis followed a qualitative procedure that combines the constant comparative method (Glaser y Strauss, 1967; Strass y Corbin, 1991) with conversational analysis (Goodwin, 2000). Findings showed that in these situations the older children rely not just on linguistic information but also on other semiotic fields.

This paper shows the results of a study that was conducted as a final research project for a master degree program, and then became the beginning of a doctoral thesis. The study looked into the potential that reflective and intermediary writing had for accessing and stimulating the reading experience of a poem by high school students. From the analysis of six texts written by three students it was seen that this kind of writing allowed to gain knowledge about the personal reading experience, and that it contributed to develop literary skills specific to poetic genre. It also showed some problems that went beyond the field of poetry and reflective writing but still affected their teaching and learning processes.

This paper constructs a theoretical framework that views academic writing from a context-based perspective. The shift from text to context results from implementating the concept of activity system into the academic community, envisioning academia as the sum of the interactions among its components (users, tools, goals and results), which was applied into an instrumental English course for first-year students through reflective activities that promoted awareness and discussion of the components of the academic community during students' inititiation. We analyse the results of the first one of these activities, a questionnaire students answered as part of the classwork. Their replies to this questionnaire show lack of awareness of the components of the academic activity system, one of the sources of the conflicts they experience during their initiation into the academy. Finally, we suggest a new approach to writing instruction that involves the convergence of research and instruction.

The constant flow of immigrants to Catalonia from different parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia has led to the creation of reception centres to help in integrating these immigrants socially. One such centre in the city of Barcelona is the Fundación Integrament in Santa Coloma de Gramenet. Here it became apparent that there was a need to give Spanish lessons to the immigrants with the help of volunteer teachers. This paper offers an initial exploration of the teaching provided in this centre, focusing on the teachers' belief systems. The research method used is the ethnographic method and the tool for collecting data was the semi-open interview, involving four informants we will refer to as Zafo, Helena, Sofía and Tere. Each interview revolved around the following topics: how the profession of volunteer teacher ties in with the teacher's system of beliefs; how previous experience of L2 learning can help in preparing lessons; how multiculturalism is seen, and how the teachers identify with the pupils' problems. In the interviews we found that the teachers' belief systems were largely determined by the profession. As for the experience of learning a second language, we found that this can be drawn on when professional beliefs allow it. We conclude by stressing the importance of continuing our ethnographic studies on teachers' and pupils' beliefs, with a view to developing suitable support material for these kinds of classes in the future.

Ever since its first appearance over a century ago, the comic has been gaining ground as a popular genre aimed above all at a juvenile readership. Its obvious success with readers has led some parents, teachers and reading-promotion professionals to ask themselves why it is so popular, and to draw wrong conclusions, like the belief that it has less value as reading matter: aimed basically at entertaining those who read it. Manga, in particular, is the most highly consumed comic genre in the West. It has become a profitable market product that spawns video games, TV series, films, etc. Its great appeal to children and young readers is a source of worry to mediators due to its allegedly violent and sexual overtones and the low literary quality of its works. This paper attempts to dispel certain clichés that derive from misconceptions regarding Japanese cartoons, through the study of a corpus of works by Japanese and European authors who aim to produce comics of high quality in both form and content, thus opening the door to promising new research. Nouvelle Manga is a new Japanese comic genre that brings together the most noteworthy communicative strategies of Japanese graphic novels, the aesthetic value of the French comic and the simplicity and tone of French Nouvelle Vague cinema to create a comic that tells everyday stories of great literary and aesthetic value: highly recommendable for juvenile and adult readers.

This paper describes a reading project conducted with two groups of children in their first year of secondary education (ESO) at a state-run school in Sant Joan Despí: one group of six Catalan children and another of six first-generation immigrant children from different parts of the world. Both groups carried out a shared reading of the picture book "Emigrantes" ("The Arrival") by Australian illustrator Shaun Tan, together with discussion sessions, interviews and activities to select illustrations and produce texts. Using data collection tools, this study analyses the different features that the children pointed out when reading the images: mainly the use of light, colour, movement and perspective, and the materiality of the book and its production process. Analysis of the elements recognised by the children, of the functions they ascribe to each of these, and of the widening and changes in perspective generated in interaction situations, leads us to reflect on the importance of the previous knowledge that readers bring into play when approaching a picture book, and on the importance of mediation and exchange in the reading of complex picture books.

The topic of pacing at the level of the individual class hour has received relatively little coverage in research literature. In order to provide a research-based take on the issue, the current work surveys the existing literature, develops terminology and draws a key distinction between macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of pacing, sequencing, grading, and transitioning. In order to focus on one of pacing’s constituent sub-topics—the allocation of classroom time—this article presents a case study of a first semester college-level introductory German class at a top-tier American university. The data come from two hours of class, one each from the beginning and end of the semester, in an attempt to discover not only how pacing affects teaching synchronically but also how it might change diachronically. Utterances and gestures were transcribed in order to segment the class into activities and sub-activities, and a model for using verbal and gestural cues to perform this kind of segmentation is proposed. The paper also discusses how the teacher allocates time to different kinds of activities, considering pacing strategies that help keep students focused and “on plan” and how these pacing strategies can allow for more time and activities spent on communicative, pair-based work. It is argued that because of the case study teacher’s focus on pacing and use of various strategies to pace the class, not only researchers but also teachers might be able to generalize the micro- and meso-pacing model described in this study to the pacing of individual lessons in their own classrooms.