Editorial / Éditorial

As we write this in February, it is very cold across the whole country. We find ourselves looking forward to June, when this issue of CMLR is published, and when the trees will be in leaf, the flowers will be blooming, and we all will have a bit more time in the longer days to read and think about language issues.

In this issue we present the winner of this year's Best Graduate Paper competition – Sandra Zappa-Hollman from the University of British Columbia. Sandra's research is on nonnative English speakers' academic presentations across postsecondary contexts. As one of the reviewers of the graduate submissions wrote, 'The author effectively achieves a triangulation of multiple data sources (observation, interview, etc.), and the presentation moves seamlessly and clearly among them.' This study will be of particular interest to those of us who work in university contexts and who have growing numbers of international and Canadian-born students for whom English is not the first language.

Our next offering is a study by Léonard Rivard, Sylvie Dilk and Gisèle Barnabé in which they compare the grammatical competence of Manitoba secondary students whose first language is French with that of students who speak French as a second language. The authors developed a grid in which they grouped 38 error types into six categories, and then contrasted the productions of the two groups of learners. This article will be of interest to all language teachers in secondary settings.

Daphne Heywood and Shelley Stagg Peterson have written an article titled 'Contributions of Families' Linguistic, Social, and Cultural Capital to Minority Language Children's Literacy: Parents', Teachers', and Principals' Perspectives.' The authors suggest strategies culled from their participants' suggestions that will facilitate ESL students' literacy learning.

Lesley Dudley has contributed an interesting study in which she examined the volunteer experiences of adult ESL students who sought additional target-language input outside their classrooms. She suggests that ESL programs could do much to improve the opportunities for students to gain access to interactions in English in volunteer settings.

Another piece that focuses on literacy is that of Linda Steinman, the author of this issue's Focus on the Classroom article.

Linda describes a project she carried out with her academic English students in which they were required to write a literacy autobiography and then conduct a contrastive analysis of their first languages with English. The students discovered that through both activities they had developed a broader awareness of their own languages and of English.

We hope that one or more of these articles will speak directly to your own context, and that you will be inspired by some of the ideas put forward here. We also hope that you will be able to read this issue on a warm, sunny day in June, in a relaxed setting. Good ideas and thoughts about trying something new in the classroom are easier to contemplate in spring than in the depths of winter.

Au moment d'écrire ces lignes en février, il fait très froid partout au pays. Nous avons hãte d'être au mois de juin quand les feuilles et les fleurs seront sorties et que nous aurons tous un petit peu plus de temps pour nous consacrer aux grandes questions se rapportant á la langue.

Dans le présent numéro, nous présentons la gagnante du concours du meilleur article par un(e) étudiant(e) diplômé(e). Il s'agit de Sandra Zappa-Hollman de l'Université de Colombie-Britannique. Sa recherche porte sur les présentations effectuées par les étudiants dont la langue maternelle n'est pas l'anglais, dans un contexte postsecondaire. Comme l'a jugé l'un des évaluateurs, cette auteure a réussi à comparer efficacement de multiples sources de données (observations, entrevues, etc.) et, dans sa présentation, elle passe facilement d'une à l'autre. Cette étude intéressera tout particulièrement les lecteurs qui travaillent en milieu universitaire et qui ont un nombre croissant d'étudiants internationaux ou canadiens appelés á faire des présentations et dont l...