Foreign Languages and Cultures

With the rise of new tendencies and methodologies in the English as a foreign language field, formal grammar instruction has become unnecessary during the last few years. Institutions and educators have made serious decisions in order to promote a language production which is fluent and coherent. Thus, grammar instruction has been partially relegated and new trends have occupied its place. However, based on personal teaching practices, I have realized that some learners are producing the foreign language in a fluid, but sometimes inaccurate form. The present reflection is aimed at presenting some insights for educators that may help them consider the possibility of teaching formal grammar as part of the curriculum.

The implementation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom has led to different practices and types of interaction. Online interaction allows teachers and students to use the target language beyond the classroom and provides students with more time to be exposed to and use the language. This case study aimed at understanding how a group of twelve students at Universidad de la Sabana, who participated in online forums as part of the requirements of a blended EFL course, interacted online to provide peer-feedback on written compositions. It also analyzed how online interaction was undertaken when using online forums. Findings suggest that participants raised awareness about the relevance of editing to avoid possible language problems by reviewing their peers' products and that the implementation of online peer feedback as an assessment strategy reveals students' beliefs towards language assessment.

The implementation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom has led to different practices and types of interaction. Online interaction allows teachers and students to use the target language beyond the classroom and provides students with more time to be exposed to and use the language. This case study aimed at understanding how a group of twelve students at Universidad de la Sabana, who participated in online forums as part of the requirements of a blended EFL course, interacted online to provide peer-feedback on written compositions. It also analyzed how online interaction was undertaken when using online forums. Findings suggest that participants raised awareness about the relevance of editing to avoid possible language problems by reviewing their peers' products and that the implementation of online peer feedback as an assessment strategy reveals students' beliefs towards language assessment.

This study explains the method of examining the interrater reliability of a procedure for assessing the stage of acquisition of Japanese as a second language (JSLA) of adult learners of Japanese. The assessment model was based on an application of processability theory (PT) of grammar acquisition introduced by Pienemann (1998) and developed for Japanese SLA by . The assessment targeted the emergence of 12 morphosyntactic procedures in the spontaneous speech samples of second language (L2) learners of Japanese.