Although the field of Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL) is still a relatively emerging one, its history runs much longer than we expect. As early as the mid to late 19th Century, Chinese was being shown in way that had not been done before – as textbooks. More importantly, these textbooks were created by non-native speakers. Yet their value as historical documents and as foundation pedagogical resources has not yet been fully recognized. The present study is an initial conversation of four late 19th century textbooks and how they pioneered presenting Chinese to a Western audience. After discussing the theoretical differences between China and the West that led to the need for textbooks, the four textbooks will be compared on how they addressed the aspects of pronunciation, tones, characters and the skills of reading, writing and speaking to their respective audiences. Such comparisons should reveal that by understanding the learner’s perspective and utilizing non-native knowledge, these textbook authors were able to teach Chinese as a pedagogically progressive, learnable language. This study should not only add depth to our knowledge of the historical foundations and teaching precedents, but will also highlight the ways Chinese was instructed and how this can positively impact our modern teaching.

School curriculum and pedagogy change over time and are affected by changes in technology. One little used technology in foreign language classrooms is the electronic language corpus. In corpus-based linguistics, language corpora are often used as tools to analyze and observe various language features, including discourse, pragmatics, and syntax. However, language corpora can also act as a tool to assist language teachers by providing greater exposure to features of the language. Using language corpora is especially helpful in exposing learners to so-called authentic language used in a target language culture. Moreover, students can gradually enhance their language proficiency by using a well-developed corpus. In the foreign language-teaching world, most corpora studies focus on using English corpora in ESL settings, and there are only a few studies focused on using foreign language corpora in other foreign language teaching settings. The light use of corpora in other foreign language settings may be partly related to the lack of user-friendly foreign language corpora, or a lack of understanding of how to manipulate different foreign language corpora effectively. This study seeks to demonstrate how language corpora can be used in advanced Chinese classrooms, and how Chinese corpora can help students to enhance their language proficiency. This study's results show that corpus use in advanced Chinese classrooms can help advanced Chinese learners to improve their understanding of grammar taught in class.

This essay examines in what ways Frederick Douglass’s autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave can be used to promote cultural awareness in the English subject of Swedish upper secondary school. To explore this question, the essay uses the concepts from Byram et al's. model of intercultural language teaching to see what teaching possibilities exist that can promote cultural awareness in the text. The importance of raising cultural awareness is foregrounded because we live in a multicultural society and cultural awareness helps us break down cultural barriers more easily and understand one another better. The method used is a literature analysis where one theme and one character are analysed namely, the theme restriction of freedom and the character Frederick Douglass himself. Additionally, Louise Rosenblatt's view of reading is also used. The findings demonstrate that you can use the autobiography to promote cultural awareness by using intercultural language teaching and Rosenblatt’s view of reading with different ways of teaching.

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A breadth of research has revealed that English as a Second Language (ESL) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers are positive towards technology integration in their classrooms (Sun & Mei, 2022) and are willing to develop their knowledge on ways to utilize technology (Nguyen, 2022). Nonetheless, there is limited information in terms of the impact of teachers’ past experiences and learning opportunities on how they implement technology in their teaching practices. Therefore, this research aims to expand on teachers’ perspectives, uses of technology, and their professional development with regard to technology. The research questions that guide this study are: 1) What are the perspectives of ESL/EFL teachers on technology integration in ESL/EFL classrooms? 2) How do ESL/EFL teachers utilize technology? 3) What factors influence ESL/EFL teachers’ past and ongoing development in technology enhanced language teaching? To address these research questions, this mixed-methods study employed online survey and interviews as the data collection instruments. Also, this research utilized thematic analysis to analyze the data from ten collegiate level ESL/EFL teachers. The participants of this study teach in two different countries: Turkey and the United States (U.S.), which increased the context-specific diversity of the data. Findings of this paper suggest that teachers have positive perspectives on technology integration in their classes and their practices of technology implementation vary depending on their teaching context and experiences. The findings also reveal that hands-on experiences and teacher collaboration have positive effects on teacher professional development with respect to technology. Along with the positive perspectives and various uses of technology, this study touches on drawbacks of technology such as student distraction, cheating/plagiarism, and other logistical difficulties. The research concludes with implications and recommendations for future research.

Improving the teaching of English as a foreign language in public schools is a high priority for the Dominican administration elected in 2004. Consequently, the government’s plan of action includes a pilot project that integrates language teaching strategies and methods already found in the country’s private, K-12, foreign language programs. The purpose of this naturalistic inquiry was to investigate English teaching through case studies at two private schools in hopes of guiding the country’s educational policy. The schools were selected based on their contrasting methods of foreign language instruction. One school, Imersão, follows a structured immersion program where most academic subjects are taught in English. The second school, Cervantina, teaches all subjects in Spanish, the students’ first language, and provides one hour a day of English instruction. The research process included repeated observations of classroom activities, interviews with administrators, staff and students, and reviewing teachers’ lesson plans and student products in English. The study found that effective English language teaching can be accomplished through varying methods, as elements that promote language learning were seen in each of the schools. The programs were observed to be similar in the importance placed on meeting the academic needs of students with differing abilities, as well as cultural and linguistic backgrounds, by having language classes emphasize the importance of grammar and vocabulary alongside culturally relevant authentic communication opportunities. Even though students at both schools are able to communicate orally and in writing in English, Imersão students appear better equipped to contend with complex academic situations in the second language. However, in order to concentrate almost entirely on the teaching of English, Imersão falls short of the immersion objective of concomitantly developing the primary language at age-appropriate levels. The results also suggest that encouraging students to analyze, deduce, and think in the foreign language while learning subject content in English is advantageous. Future research into this topic should explore where the threshold of optimum exposure to the foreign language inside and outside of the classroom might be in order to achieve language proficiency, therefore allowing the administration to maximize the use of limited education resources.

In this essay, the published ELT coursebook ECHO 6 is critically examined. The focus of the examination is the communicative opportunities within ECHO 6. These opportunities are analyzed and concretized with help from the Swedish Curriculum for English 6. In the results section, the communicative opportunities within five selected chapters are explored in depth. Later, these chapters are discussed and contrasted with relevant literature about English teaching in general as well as communicative language teaching. Our conclusion is that ECHO 6 does provide students with several opportunities to communicate and develop communicative skills in English. However, there are essential parts missing in order for the textbook to be completely communicative.   Key words: Language teaching, ECHO 6, communication, communicative language teaching (CLT), students, teacher, language skills and language systems.

The issues relative to foreign accent continue to puzzle second language researchers, educators, and learners today. Although once thought to be at the root, maturational constraints have fallen short of definitively accounting for the myriad levels and rates of phonological attainment (Bialystok & Miller, 1999, p. 128). This study, a Posttest-only Control Group Design, examined how the pronunciation accuracy of adult, English language learners, as demonstrated by utterance length, was related to two input stimuli: auditory-only input and auditoryorthographic input. Utterance length and input modality were further examined with the added variables of native language, specifically Arabic and Spanish, and second language proficiency as defined by unofficial TOEFL Listening Comprehension and Reading Comprehension section scores. Results from independent t tests indicated a statistically significant difference in utterance length based on input modality (t(192) = -3.285. p = .001), while with the added variable of native language, factorial ANOVA results indicated no statistically significance difference for the population studied. In addition, multiple linear regression analyses examined input modality and second language proficiency as predictors of utterance length accuracy and revealed a statistically significant relationship (R 2 = .108, adjusted R 2 = .089, F(3, 144) = 5.805, p = .001), with 11% of the utterance length variance accounted for by these two factors predictors. Lastly, hierarchical regressions applied to two blocks of factors revealed statistical significance: (a) input modality/native language (R 2 = .069, adjusted R 2 = .048, F(2, 87) = 3.230, p = .044) and ListenComp (R 2 = .101, adjusted R 2 = .070, F(3, 86) = 3.232, p = .026), with ListenComp iv increasing the predictive power by 3%; (b) input modality/native language (R 2 = .069, adjusted R 2 = .048, F(2, 87) = 3.230, p = .044) and ReadComp (R 2 = .112, adjusted R 2 = .081, F(1, 86) = 3.629, p = .016), with ReadComp increasing the predictive power by 4%; and (c) input modality/native language (R 2 = .069, adjusted R 2 = .048, F(2, 87) = 3.230, p = .044) and ListenComp/ReadComp (R 2 = .114, adjusted R 2 = .072, F(2, 85) = 2.129, p = .035), with ListenComp/ReadComp increasing the predictive power by 4%. The implications of this research are that by considering issues relative to input modality and second language proficiency levels especially when teaching new vocabulary to adult second language learners, the potential for improved pronunciation accuracy is maximized. Furthermore, the heightened attention to the role of input modality as a cognitive factor on phonological output in second language teaching and learning may redirect the manner in which target language phonology is approached.

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