Volume 44, Issue 1

This paper presents a quantitative analysis of the variation underlying subject-verb agreement in the spoken French interlanguage of Irish classroom and study abroad learners. Results outline the range of factors constraining that variation, such as the learners’ level of informal contact with the language, as well as linguistic factors such as temporal context, verb frequency, and functional constraints. Since the variation observed is specifically restricted to irregular verbs in third person plural contexts, the findings are discussed with reference to the acquisition of (ir)regular verb morphology.

This paper centres on published research reports produced by members of the TESOL discourse community. The analysis extends the Hallidayan concept of given/new information from its origins (used for capturing information structure at the clause level) and relates it to the analysis of the macro-structural organisation of TESOL research reports. The pragmatic aspect of given and new is combined with Hoey’s (1983, 2001) Problem-Solution pattern to help demonstrate not only how TESOL research report texts are organised, but also what the pragmatic function of that organisation is at the genre level. Then, a deeper analysis of writer management of certain elements of the Problem-Solution pattern is undertaken; this gives insights into how writers align themselves as members of the TESOL community while simultaneously presenting their own contribution as new and valuable.

Many learners, especially those in a foreign-language setting, draw on the classroom as their primary forum for using and experiencing the target language, still for the most part during teacher-led instruction. Nevertheless, communicative language teaching does not provide a decisive definition of “good language use”. Teachers usually take an eclectic approach and, as a result, are likely to vary from each other in classroom-language use practices. This study uses quantitative and qualitative data gathered in a semester-long video project as well as supporting documentation, such as teacher interviews, students’ final course grades, and end-of-course evaluations to describe (1) how three (two female, one male) experienced non-native-speaker teachers of German in an intermediate-level multi-section college course differ from each other in the amount of teacher/student talk; L1/L2 use; class pace; turn-taking; and the basic structure and focus of a class (2) how these differences correspond with the teachers’ self-perceived roles; and (3) how students perceive their particular classroom experiences.