Volume 22, No. 1 Winter 2004 No. 2. Spring 2005

TESL Canada Journal     Volume 22, No. 1  Winter 2004    No. 2.  Spring 2005

This study focuses on a multicultural ESL classroom with the purpose of exploring the creation of new individual and cultural identities and the formation of interculture. Through on-site observations and interviews with second-language learners and their teacher, the study presents findings about the dynamics, quandaries, complexity, and diversity of classroom interculture. The metaphor of the "third place" (Kramsch, 1993) aptly captures the nature of this interculture in its fluidity and ambiguity. Perceiving language-learning in this way allows one to look beyond the traditional dichotomous views and approaches to culture and identity in ESL settings and to describe properly the enriching process of creating new identity and new cultural space that is greater than the sum of individual cultures.

In 1979, the Educational Testing Service (ETS) developed the TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication), an English proficiency test for people working in international environments, based on a request from the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry. The Chauncey Group International, a subsidiary of ETS, currently develops and publishes the test. Over two million people per year take the TOEIC (www.toeic.com). According to the TOEIC Report on Test-Takers Worldwide, 1997-98, 63% of the TOEIC results were used in Japan, 29% in Korie, and 8% in other countries.

Most review of the TOEIC have been descriptions of the test (Gilfert, 1996; Perkins, 1987). The TOEIC comprises the listening and the reading section. Buck (2001) reviews only the listening section. For the reading section of the TOEIC we could find only one critical review (Richards, 1992) published over the two decades since the test was developed. Therefore, our purpose in this article is to review critically the reading section based on recent studies of language assessment, particularly for construct validity and content validity, which are considered by language testing researchers (Bachman, 1990; Cumming, 1996) as fundamental for validation of language tests.

During the past five years, an increasing number of younger international students from mainland China have appeared on Canadian campuses to pursue their first university degrees. What is it like being a international student studying in a foreign language and culture at such a young age? Through narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000), the study reported here examines the transitional experiences of four female high school students from mainland China as they moved from a Chinese high school to a Canadian high school and later to a Canadian university. The study attempts to record and understand the challenges these students must face in order to live and study in English in a vastly different educational, cultural, and social milieu. The study also offers insights into how these international students, as well as many recent immigrant ESL students, can be better supported during their adaptation process in Canada.

The language-through-content movement of the past decade has promoted the use of authentic texts for language-learning purposes. Content-based instruction, however, has had the effect of emphasizing content as the driver of curriculum rather than language-learning objectives in the language-through-content equation. Longitudinal studies of ESL learners' achievement on standardized measures suggest that it is in the intermediate-level proficiency range that these students are most in need of materials that are qualitatively and quantitatively distinct from authentic text. These distinct materials are needed in order to promote the development of English-language proficiency. Using various computer tools, teachers can prepare materials for intermediate-level learners following a principled approach, thus supporting them through a stage in their language development when they are at risk of failure. This article provides information and examples of how this may be accomplished. We conclude that preparing materials may also contribute to teachers' professional development.

Over the last 15 years, the rapid development of information and communication technologies (ICT) has facilitated a revolution in how we use language. Online environments have facilitated creative and variable spelling using code hybridization and stylistic use of mechanical conventions such as punctuation and capitalization, lexical coinages, new genres and conversational shapes, new social networks, and digital identities. The traditional four-skills paradigm of text-based grammar study framing English-language teaching curricula no longer adequately describes language and literacies in the Information Era. This article examines changing language conventions in English used in online environments, theorizing directions for new and variable language conventions. This article make the case that understanding relative language standards in digital environments is essential for teaching and testing appropriate and contemporary English language and literacies.

Error correction research has focused mostly on teachers' strategies and their effects on student writing. Much less has been done to find out about students' beliefs and attitudes about teachers' feedback on errors. This study aimed to investigate L2 secondary students' perspectives, beliefs, and attitudes about error correction in the writing classroom. Data were obtained from a questionnaire and from follow-up interviews. the findings showed that most students wished their teachers to mark and correct errors for them and believed that error correction was primarily the teacher's responsibility. the article ends with some pedagogical implications that can be applied in L2 writing classrooms.

This article examines processes of gender identity construction in the classrooms of two ESOL teachers living in their first year of teaching. Drawing from a year-long study of beginning teaching, the author explores the complex relationship among the physical body, language pedagogy, and socially constructed understandings of beauty, then goes on to problematize the pedagogical location of the body and ask how the gendered body can be mediated in classroom contexts. The article contrasts the two teachers' pedagogical approaches to the intricate work of locating the body in the ESOL classroom and discusses the range of possibilities available for the exploration, negotiation, and expression of gender identities in relation to the physical body.

This empirical study examines how english-as-a-second-language (ESL) learners use their vocabulary knowledge for inferring meanings of unknown words in reading comprehension. The data, collected through interviews with young adult ESL students in Canadian universities, indicate that (a) semantic and morphological aspects of vocabulary knowledge play an important role in learners' comprehension processes; (b) a positive relationship exists between certain aspects of learners' vocabulary knowledge and their lexical inferencing ability; and (c) in processing the meaning of unknown words, all learners looked for cues to meaning, but learners with varying depths of vocabulary knowledge tended to focus on varying strategies.

This study explores in an innovative manner the notion of resilience in a group of immigrant students. Structured interviews were used to explore resilience issues with immigrant students enrolled in university. Two interviewers collected and recorded data together, but conducted separate and independent analyses to explore differences in results due to their own cultural backgrounds. Findings suggest that the traditional concept of resilience - one based on studies of students from lower socioeconomic classes in school in inner-city neighborhoods that identify social competence, problem-solving ability, autonomy, and satisfaction with school as significant resilience factors - is limited. The findings in this study suggest that immigrant students represent a different pattern of resilience related to a strong cultural belief in the value of education and the support, often financial, provided by their families. Interesting differences in interpretation related to the first culture of the researchers suggest that "mirrored reflections" offers one way to capture differences in data interpretation resulting from researchers' backgrounds.