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Following a surge in the 1970s of research on the role played by the L1 in L2 acquisition, Ellis (1985) compiled ESL studies in which the percentage of L1-based errors was provided. He concluded that, according to available research findings, approximately one third of ESL errors appear to be due to L1 influence. For more than 30 years, that figure of 33% has been circulating and Ellis’ table and/or its content has been reproduced in many publications. Increased accessibility to publications in electronic form makes it possible not only to add new studies to the table created by Ellis, but to make changes to the already existing table by adding studies conducted prior to 1985. A thorough search based on various selection criteria allowed us to greatly expand the original table with 20 newer studies, and eight studies that had been overlooked in 1985. We obtained the more reliable figure of 42%, based on 34 studies rather than on seven only.

As part of a larger scale research on teachers’ beliefs and practices, the present study examined the categories of pedagogical beliefs of novice and experienced EFL teachers (gleaned from the administration of ‘Importance of Pedagogical Knowledge Scale’ (IPKS)) and their verbal reports through semi structured interviews and stimulated recall, and compared these categories to their practices which were examined through classroom observation. The goal was to explore the possible mismatches between novice and experienced teachers’ beliefs (TB) and practices in relation to classroom management and organization, language assessment, motivation, and teachers’ knowledge including, content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and pedagogical knowledge. Within the domain of the qualitative research, a multi-case study design was utilized, involving eight novice and experienced teachers who were selected through purposive sampling. The data were analyzed using the constant comparative method around common themes and categories, which were identified as distinctive features of teachers’ beliefs; the same categories were then compared with teachers' practices. To ensure the validity of the results, multiple data sources were used to triangulate the data. The results of the study showed that the pedagogical beliefs of novice and experienced teachers were represented differently in their practices, and except for teachers’ content knowledge there were mismatches between their beliefs and practices considering the other major categories.

The present article explores the idea of using movies in EFL classrooms to develop students' writing skill. In this qualitative study, 15 EFL learners were engaged in different writing activities in a contextualized form of movies, meaning that the films acted as text-books, and activities were designed based on the contexts of the films. Taking an action research design, and by relying on different sources to enrich the class, the researchers took the learner-and-instructor role to explore writing beyond its conventional practices in EFL classrooms. After 40 hours of instruction, it was shown that the students found a way to enrich their writings and to express their ideas through words and statements that resembled the way writers and directors of the movies dealt with pictures. Students were engaged in deciphering the pictures, inferring and expressing the meanings, and finding a framework for their writings based on the genres of the movies. Following these activities, learners learnt how to be visually literate and to move beyond the predetermined writing formats and discover their own through an artistic practice to give life to their texts, like movies.

This study reviews 17 studies since the year of 2000 on the perceptions and practices of immigrant parents who reside in the United States or Canada with respect to their children’s heritage language maintenance (HLM). The findings suggest that parental perceptions may change due to practical considerations and vary with different degrees of expectation, emphases, and reasons. To apply their attitudes into practice, the body of literature shows that parents take the responsibility to make efforts, through trying to make full use of the in-house and external resources such as creating language environment and attending heritage language school and church. However, some of them have little enthusiasm and some of them change their language practices. Also, there are discrepancies between what they think and what they practice. Several challenges are synthesized including children’s changing language practices, their resistance to attending heritage language school, and parents’ lack of time and energy. Further implications are discussed regarding children’s bilingual/ multilingual development, parental efforts, and external resources. It is concluded that joint efforts from parents, educational institutions, governments, and other organizations should be made to tackle the issues in HLM.

Pragmatic or discourse like is one of the most prominent features in everyday vernacular Englishes (D’Arcy, 2005, p. 2). Overtly stigmatised, the discourse marker like is considered by many to be a superfluous feature that is a sign of hesitancy and inarticulacy and has given rise to many criticisms of such usage with those using like being thought of as stupid. In this study, I investigate the use of like among younger (16-25) males and females and older (50-65) males from Liverpool. Conversations between the three age cohorts and genders were recorded for the purpose of analyses. To ensure that the frequency of scores are comparable across texts, I adopt Biber, Conrad and Reppen’s (1998) methodology of normalisation and give frequency scores per 1000 words of text. The study found that like is not a feature of inarticulacy, and that it’s not used to gain time in conversation. It is used more by female speakers for certain pragmatic functions such as focus, metaphoric usage and narration. Between the genders males were found to use clause final like the most, which could be seen as a regional dialect feature.

Some Avestan words have been more of a subject for discussion and debate among scholars of Avestan texts; every scholar has interpreted and analyzed the words and the texts based on their own evidence. Although many of Avestan words have clear and specific roots, there still exist some which have gained significance through etymological and analytical research conducted on them due to disagreements among linguists. The current study is a survey on three such words: (1) Pairika, (2) Khnathaiti, and (3) Gandarewa. These are the names of mythological creatures of the younger Avestan texts. This study is a precise examination of the etymology and source of these words.

In Benin metropolis, outdoor HIV/AIDS campaign messages have been coined and passed to the populace through the use of pictures and texts. Previous studies on HIV/AIDS campaign messages in Nigeria were mostly on indoor campaigns, such as media messages, newspapers, etc. The present study is the first semiotic analysis of outdoor HIV/AIDS campaign messages. It aims to explore the effectiveness of the messages to the populace. The data for this semiotic analysis were collected from HIV/AIDS posters and billboards, Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), and In-depth interviews (IDI) in the five local government areas (LGAs) in Benin Metropolis. The respondents aged between 15 and 65 years and were purposively selected for this research. Barthes’ (1997) Semiotics Theory of images was adopted for the analysis of pictorial data. Results indicated that the literate audiences of Benin metropolis could decode indirect or figurative HIV/AIDS pictorial messages in English; however, the illiterate respondents could only give surface interpretation to the pictorial signs, and the pictorial messages were not effective on the illiterate respondents. It was concluded that outdoor campaign messages using indigenous languages and pictorial depictions should be encouraged with reservation.