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Though there is an extensive literature on materials in language teaching, little if any of it examines the relationship between materials such as textbooks and the totality of the classroom experience. The present study makes use of the concept of classroom ecology (Tudor, 2001; van Lier, 1996) to explore the interrelationships among materials and other crucial elements in an advanced ESL grammar class offered in the Intensive English Program of an American university. We focus in particular on the ways in which the textbook—Azar's (2002) Understanding and using English grammar—constituted the de facto curriculum of the course, and how it provided structure for the majority of the classroom interaction. Finally, we speculate on the relationship between the materials and language learning in this classroom. We argue that the framework of ecology, with its emphasis on affordances and emergence, provides a compelling lens through which to study the ways in which materials are actually deployed in classrooms, and how teachers and students conceive of the work being done there.

The purpose of this research is to identify UK English academics' conceptions of information literacy and compare those conceptions with current information literacy standards and frameworks

This paper examines aspects of the knowledge base that experienced English as a second language (ESL) teachers draw on in their teaching, primarily in giving explanations of grammar and other language points. The paper focuses on three categories of teacher knowledge: content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and knowledge of learners (Shulman, 1987). Observations of and interviews with four experienced ESL grammar teachers about their classroom explanations are analyzed using this framework. The results indicate that these three categories of knowledge are intertwined in complex ways as they are played out in the classroom and in teacher thinking. This knowledge base and the actions it leads to are further seen to be fundamentally process-oriented. It is argued that the knowledge base itself should be integrated into language teacher education programs and that its complex and process-oriented nature needs to be taken into account in language teacher education curriculum design.

The terms career and profession are increasingly common in discussions of EFL/ESL teaching. Yet little is known about the working lives of teachers in this field. It is time to gather empirical data on teachers' lives in various contexts and to examine whether in fact these lives can best be conceptualized in terms of careers and profession or whether other theoretical approaches might be more fruitful. The present article describes a study based upon life history interviews with 17 EFL teachers in Poland. In light of a range of substantive and theoretical problems with applying existing teacher career models to an EFL context, the study employed an innovative analysis based on the theory of language of Mikhail Bakhtin. Bakhtin describes language as heteroglossic, or comprising multiple, competing discourses that are in ongoing, dynamic dialogue with one another. In the present study, the interview transcripts are treated as discourse, and the central question is: What discourses do teachers draw on in discursively constructing their lives? The analysis reveals that in teachers' discursive presentations of their lives, teachers' life‐story narratives do not appear to be present. Rather, teachers' stories reflect dynamic and nonunitary identities that interact discursively in complex ways with a range of other discourses from the social, economic, and political context. The implications of this situation for the field of EFL/ESL are considered.

The authors identify some key definitions of 'information literacy' and initiatives concerned with imparting information literacy skills. They identify limitations in taking an approach to information literacy which assumes that it can be boiled down to a list of skills. Alternative conceptions of information literacy are described. Previous research has identified a lack of information on how students experience and define information literacy. The authors describe the student response to a one-semester credit-bearing class in information literacy, taken by business students at the University of Strathclyde, and relate it to two models of information literacy. They go on to discuss two issues in the light of previous developments and their own research: appropriate pedagogic methods for educating for information literacy and information literacy as a discipline in its own right. They conclude by identifying further areas for research and by recommending that information scientists should lead the way in defining this growing area. 50 1 2

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