Language acquisition and Language Maintenance (LM) both depend on ample opportunity and motivation. Currently, many national language societies are undergoing Language Shift (LS) to English, impacting their acquisition as first (L1) and possibly even more as second (L2) language. This study interviewed 44 adolescents, including 24 L1 and 20 L2…

Purpose: This study investigates how Mandarin-English bilingual students in Canada produce Mandarin tones and how this is influenced by factors such as tone complexity, cross-linguistic influences, and speech input. Method: Participants were 82 students enrolled in a Chinese bilingual program in Western Canada. Students were recruited from Grades…

This study delves into the predictors of English proficiency among middle school students in China, utilizing the rich dataset provided by the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS). By integrating multilevel modeling and Support Vector Regression (SVR), this research scrutinizes a broad spectrum of factors at the individual, family, class, and…

In this study, we examined the accuracy and consistency of Greek-speaking children with spelling difficulties using a spelling level-matched design at two time points. Eighty-seven children were selected for inclusion in three groups: a group with spelling difficulties (SpD, n = 22 fifth graders) and two control groups, a chronological age-matched…

Acquisition of oral English verb morphology presents difficulties for bilinguals, learners of EFL and English-speaking monolingual children with specific language impairment. This study aimed to identify challenging English verb inflections among sixth grade speakers of Arabic (N = 85) and Hebrew (N = 86) using an elicited oral narrative task, and…

This comparative research study examined Grade Five Malaysian Aboriginal pupils' mathematical performance on 30 computation and 20 word problem items in the academic Malay language and community "Temiar" language. The items were constructed in the Malay language before adapting and audio recording into the "Temiar" language…

In science, graphs are used to visualise data, relationships and scientific principles. Basic graph reading operations, i.e. reading single data points, recognising trends as well as conducting small extrapolations from the data are important skills for pupils and lay the groundwork for a comprehensive understanding of data visualisations across…

The purpose of this research was to identify the common errors made in English writing by Malaysian Chinese primary year 6 ESL students and to determine the extent of the influence of the first language, Mandarin in ESL writing. The Mandarin language uses a logographic writing system while the English language is written in alphabetic scripts. The…

The purpose of this research is to develop a vocabulary assessment, Evaluation of Academic Vocabulary or "EAV," that gauges students' depth of knowledge of academic words and is sensitive to vocabulary growth in the context of literacy interventions. We report results from two studies with native English-speaking middle school students…

The purpose of this research is to develop a vocabulary assessment, Evaluation of Academic Vocabulary or "EAV," that gauges students' depth of knowledge of academic words and is sensitive to vocabulary growth in the context of literacy interventions. We report results from two studies with native English-speaking middle school students…

The two studies reported on in this paper examine the features of words that distinguish students' performances on vocabulary assessments as a means of understanding what contributes to the ease or difficulty of vocabulary knowledge. The two studies differ in the type of assessment, the types of words that were studied, and the grade levels and…

In this article we explore the use of pictorial glossaries as an accommodation for English learners (ELs) with entry and emerging levels of English language proficiency. Drawing on survey responses from 98 middle school ELs and cognitive interviews with 10 of the survey participants, we examined the participants' preferences and experiences with…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether an eighth grade state-level math assessment contained items that function differentially (DIF) for English Learner students (EL) as compared to English Only students (EO) and if so, what factors might have caused DIF. To determine this, Differential Item Functioning (DIF) analysis was employed.…