Search

Given the increasing popularity amongst mainland European higher educational institutions to offer some of their classes and courses in English, this paper addresses the roles English plays in such classroom discourse. By focussing on one specific English-medium hotel management programme, it is argued that English functions, on the one hand, as language of the learners' future expertise and, on the other, as their only shared medium of communication, i.e., their lingua franca. A detailed analysis of question-initiated exchanges taken from critical phases throughout the programme accompanied over its whole duration illustrates the realities of this multifunctionality of English as revealed in teachers and students raising, and responding to, different kinds of question at different points in time. On the basis of these discourse-pragmatic findings it is suggested that (language) learning processes depend in their complexity and dynamics on English in its roles as lingua franca and as professional language, but also on how these roles are conceptuald within a generally content-focussed teaching programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evaluates accent recognition and language attitudes. Arguments that accent recognition can influence speaker evaluations; Indepth look at accent recognition as an integral part of future investigations into language attitudes.

The article offers information on the work of the Research Network on Content and Language Integrated Learning and Immersion Classrooms (CLIL ReN) of the International Association of Applied Linguists (AILA). Topics include a symposium at the April 4-5, 2014 AESLA (Asociación Española de Lingüística Aplicada) Conference in Sevilla, Spain; a session at the AILA2014 conference in Brisbane, Australia; and research on CLIL teaching.

The article offers information on the symposia of the Research Network on Content and Language Integrated Learning and Immersion Classrooms (CLIL ReN) for 2013-2014. It mentions the thematic symposium during the CLIL2013 conference in Ustron, Poland on April 4-6, 2013. It offers information on the 2014 symposia to be held at two conferences in Seville, Spain on April 4-5 and Brisbane, Queensland on August 10-15. Also mentioned is the new website of the network.

The article offers information on the Applied Linguistics Perspectives on Content and Language Integrated Learning Conference (ALP-CLIL) to be held at Miraflores de la Sierra in Madrid, Spain from June 5 to 8, 2013, and the CLIL 2013 Conference in Silezia, Poland from April 4 to 6, 2013.