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This article reports on a mixed methods study that investigated the extent to which written corrective feedback (WCF) contributes to L2 learners’ acquisition of regular past tense in English and the cognitive processes that underpin the corrective feedback provided. The study adopted a pretest-posttest-delayed posttest design and involved 113 intermediate-level Chinese learners of English who were assigned to four conditions: indirect WCF, direct WCF, metalinguistic WCF, and control. A picture description task and a grammaticality judgement test were used to measure gains in the target structure. To explore how learners process feedback, nine learners, three from each treatment group, were selected to produce think aloud protocols. The study found that all three types of WCF had a positive effect on the picture description task, though none of them had a clear impact on the grammaticality judgement test. In addition, indirect WCF was found to have an advantage over direct and metalinguistic WCF on the delayed posttest, when compared to the control group. Think aloud data suggested that indirect WCF induced deeper cognitive processes than the other two kinds of feedback, which may account for the superiority of indirect WCF.

Social interactions that take place during study abroad in linguistically rich settings are important for oral proficiency development; however, few studies have explicitly examined the underlying network structure of students’ social experiences in study abroad contexts and its role in oral proficiency development. This mixed-methods research examined the relationship between self-reported social network structures and self-perceived English oral proficiency gains among 88 Chinese international students at a UK university. While the majority of participants’ networks consisted of Chinese-speaking peers, most of them managed to develop strong and frequent relations with English-speaking peers. Students reported gains in oral proficiency, especially in areas related to language use that require higher levels of proficiency. Diverse networks with significant and high-frequency English-speaking relationships were more likely to be associated with L2 oral proficiency gains, while dense networks with only frequent and strong in-group relationships could potentially limit L2 development.

Teachers play a crucial role in the implementation of an English as a lingua franca (ELF) perspective in the classroom. However, little research has been conducted on what challenges teachers might encounter and what types of support are needed to teach English from an ELF perspective. This study thus explores the experiences of seven primary teachers enrolled in a teacher development programme designed to support their attempts to teach from an ELF perspective in South Korea. Drawing on in-depth interview data, the paper provides detailed accounts of the challenges and strategies for developing ELF-aware teachers. The main challenges encountered included a lack of the pedagogical skills required to implement planned lessons, the paucity of relevant instructional materials, and parents’ strong preference for Standard English. It is possible, however, that these challenges could be addressed by creating opportunities for guided reflection, peer collaboration, and effective communication. Implications for future ELF-aware teacher development programmes are also discussed.

This paper reports on a study that looks at the micro-processes of teacher learning in a language teacher professional community in China. Following the tradition of ethnomethodology, teacher learning in this paper is conceptualised as interactional accomplishment of negotiation of practice through talk. Based on a purposively selected discourse sample, this paper illustrates the trajectory of how the differences in the understandings of creativity among a small group of language teacher educators (or ‘teachers’ thereafter) were taken up, talked through and finally resolved (or not). The research demonstrates that teachers’ tacit knowledge was distributed among individual members of the professional community where different pedagogical understandings existed. The micro-analysis also shows that teachers’ talk created a dialogic space for the participants to externalise and mobilise their tacit knowledge for negotiation. Implications are drawn which point to the importance of creating opportunities for teacher collaboration and teacher talk as part of professional development.

The motivation to learn a third language (L3) has received increasing attention in research, especially with regard to how it evolves dynamically during the learning process. Underpinned by the L2 Motivational Self System [Dörnyei, Z. 2005. The Psychology of the Language Learner: Individual Differences in Second Language Acquisition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum], this paper reports on a longitudinal case study which explored learners’ L3 motivational dynamics. It focused specifically on the developmental trajectories of these learners’ ideal/ought-to L3 selves and the formation of such trajectories in relation to their language experiences. Three rounds of semi-structured interviews were conducted with five L3 learners of German at one Chinese university over two years. The data revealed that learners’ L3 motivation fluctuated during the learning process. Whereas learners’ ideal L3 selves displayed a clear upward trajectory in the first year and an observable decline at the later stage, their ought-to L3 selves became weaker in general over the two years. Moreover, learners’ L3-related learning experiences were found to have contributed to the dynamics of their future L3 selves. Implications are discussed which point to the importance of assisting language learners to construct their ideal/ought-to selves and to increase their L3 motivation.

This paper aims to define the knowledge base of teaching in linguistically diverse secondary schools in England. Based on extensive interviews with the teachers across two schools, the paper identifies a range of good practices centred on flexibility and differentiation. These include diversifying teaching resources by using bilingual materials and dialogic tasks, as well as making adjustments to teaching by simplifying input and including cultural references. These practices are characterised by ‘a situated child-centred approach’ which is underpinned by 10 core principles of multilingual classroom pedagogy for English as an additional language. Implications for education policy and practice are also discussed.

Research into the language socialisation of migrant-background children in new educational contexts has pointed to a complex relationship between language, identity, and social integration. This article helps us to further define this relationship in two main ways. Firstly, through focusing on the specific (and largely neglected) context of the experiences of newly-arrived migrant school children from disadvantaged backgrounds and with little initial command of English, in the East of England, which has in recent years seen a steep rise in the population of children from Eastern Europe in particular. Secondly, through inductive analysis of the pupils’ accounts of their experience in the new environment, the article identifies four key themes which shed light on the overlap between language, identity, and social integration in this context: perceptions of exclusion in the new language environment, the social boundaries of language use, L1 exchange as communicative capital, and languages and identity simulation.

The use of communication strategies is one of the core components that constitute communicative competence. However, the problem-oriented conceptualization of L2 strategic behavior has been widely criticized as it does not give sufficient attention to the social nature of communication and learning. This study thus makes an attempt to re-conceptualize communication as a mediated activity that focuses on the process and goal of communication. Eight EFL junior high school learners in Taiwan participated in this study. Empirical data were collected from an oral elicitation task, and then triangulated by retrospective comments derived from stimulated recall interviews and semi-structured interviews with the participants. The data were coded with Dörnyei and Scott's (1995) taxonomy of communication strategies and mapped onto a sociocultural framework of mediation for analysis. The findings showed that the use of strategies was at times problem-oriented for avoiding or solving communication breakdowns. Nevertheless, what seemed more significant was that interlocutors also made efficient choices of strategies according to the context and aim of the task. It is rightly the purpose of this paper to develop an enriched view of L2 strategic competence that acknowledges both the problem-oriented and goal-oriented nature of communication.

The paper reports on an in-depth narrative case study of an immigrant background English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher’s emotional experience in a teacher professional community in England. The data are derived from the teacher’s ‘emotion diaries’ and six interviews during the three-month period when she taught on a pre-sessional English programme at an English university. The data were analysed with Andy Hargreaves’s emotional geography framework which focuses on the physical, moral, sociocultural, professional and political aspects of schooling. Through five stories that recount her experience in different emotional geographies, the paper demonstrates that the teacher had understandings and misunderstandings of different aspects of schooling, which gave rise to various emotions, both positive and negative. In order to survive, she also needed to adopt a wide range of strategies to manage her emotions. The study has implications for both teachers and administrators by stressing the need to engage in emotional understanding of each other’s work.

This paper reports on the findings of a 12-month project within a broader research programme that looks at a group of East European students with English as an Additional Language (EAL) in England. The data are derived from interviews with the students and teachers in two schools. The findings show that EAL students had a keen interest in English. This attitude contrasted with their reluctance to use and talk about their home language, as a result of language loss and fear of being bullied. Teachers’ attitudes towards languages were also mixed, ranging from support for ‘free use of languages’, to ‘restricted use of home language’, and to ‘use of English only’. The paper further argues that multilingualism can be theorised as legitimate shared repertoires of school communities of practice. Practical implications are drawn which suggest that students’ and teachers’ voices should be acted upon and translated into school language policies.

This study explored the role of vocabulary breadth and depth in second language learners’ performance in IELTS academic reading tests in China. Sixty-two Chinese learners of English as a foreign language completed a vocabulary size test, a vocabulary depth test, and an IELTS reading test. Results showed that vocabulary breadth and depth both correlated significantly with IELTS reading test scores. With regard to different IELTS question types, vocabulary breadth correlated significantly with True/False/Not Given questions, whereas vocabulary depth correlated more significantly with Multiple Choice, Matching Headings, and Sentence Completion tasks. Results of a multiple regression model indicated the increase of vocabulary size needed to improve certain IELTS band scores. This study has theoretical implications for broadening the conceptualisation of vocabulary depth, as well as pedagogical implications for supporting students’ second language reading development.