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This collection of articles on use of films in second language instruction, particularly for teaching English as a second language (ESL) in Japanese colleges and universities, includes: "Whole Movies and Engaged Response in the Japanese University ESL Classroom" (David P. Shea); "Films in English Class: Going Beyond a Content Approach" (Jeffrey Cady); "Learning by Collaboration and Teaching: A Film Presentation Project" (Christine Pearson Casanave, David Freedman); "Finding the Last Puzzle Piece Through Conversion" (Yoko Shimizu); "The Value of Reading and Film Viewing in Fostering Critical Thinking" (Sae Yamada); "The Listening-Viewing Diary in an Advanced Listening/Speaking Class" (Naomi Fujishima); "The Portrayal of Women in American Films: A Scenario for Misunderstanding" (Yoshiko Takahashi); "An Anthropological Perspective on Films in the Language Class" (Thomas Hardy); and "Copyright Law and Video in the Classroom" (J. David Simons). (Individual papers contain references). (MSE)

Ways of using Applied Linguistics literature on topics in academic and professional writing in a multidisciplinary graduate level EAP class are explained. Strengths and limitations of this approach in a foreign language setting are discussed.

In this diary study, the author draws from journals written over the course of 8 years working as an English instructor at a Japanese university, with the aim of documenting the influences on her desire to invest effort in the self-study of Japanese (what she refers to as the ecology of effort). An ecological perspective reveals the idiosyncratic and fluctuating nature of motivation due to daily contextual, personal, and emotional factors that interacted in unpredictable ways. One point of interest to researchers is that important ecological and relational influences on and emotional reactions to language learning cannot be uncovered with traditional motivation research. A second point of interest to adult language learners is that when full-time language study is not possible or desired, dabblingis an excellent way to stay connected to active but low-pressure language learning and to maintain a sense of wonder at the miracle of language.

Successful reading comprehension depends not only on readers' ability to access appropriate content and formal schemata. It also depends on their ability to monitor what they understand and to take appropriate strategic action. L2 reading research and pedagogy might fruitfully be expanded to explore how different kinds of L2 students can be helped to monitor their reading comprehension. Suggestions in this article include how to introduce students to the concept and language of routine monitoring and, from L1 training studies, how to teach specific monitoring and repair strategies to individuals with special reading problems (reciprocal teaching—Palincsar & Brown, 1984) and to larger, more “average” groups (a think‐aloud procedure—Bereiter & Bird, 1985). Our underlying knowledge about such monitoring behaviors might be viewed as strategy schemata, which, in addition to schemata for content and form, influence how we understand what we read. Learning to articulate this knowledge is thought to enhance learning, at least in the classroom context. Applications to the many L2 contexts remain to be explored.