Purpose: The purpose of this quantitative, causal-comparative study was to determine whether English learners who participated in transitional kindergarten perform equally or better than English learners who did not participate in transitional kindergarten in the areas of oral language, written language, and overall language as measured by the…

California is on the cusp of implementing universal preschool--a step that could help level the playing eld for young children. Over the next few years, all four-year-olds will become eligible for Transitional Kindergarten (TK), which has been part of the state's early learning programs since 2012. In this report, the authors examine the…

This study examined factors affecting international students' willingness to communicate (WTC) in English as a second language (ESL), focusing on second language (L2) self-confidence, acculturation, and motivational types. L2 self-confidence was hypothesized to predict L2 WTC and to mediate the correlation between acculturation and L2 WTC for…

The stage is set for major change in California early childhood education (ECE). The State's requirements for Transitional Kindergarten instruction, teacher training, and professional development could lead to mandated integration of existing, impressive Dual Language Learner (DLL) resources, guidance, and best practices. In addition to more…

One in five school-age children in the U.S. speaks a language other than English at home (Zeigler & Camarota, 2014). Roughly half of these emerging bilingual students (Garcia, 2009) are classified as English learners (ELs) when they enter school, meaning they do not meet state or district criteria for English proficiency (NCES, 2015). As the…

When literacy instruction is integrated and contextualized in a child's background knowledge and daily experiences, learning is increased. This mixed-methods study describes effective bilingual instruction in second-grade classrooms in the United States where teachers utilize students' linguistic capital and foster home-school connections, two…

This book contains a compilation of papers presented at the International Conference on Education and New Developments (END 2017), organized by the World Institute for Advanced Research and Science (W.I.A.R.S.). Education, in our contemporary world, is a right since we are born. Every experience has a formative effect on the constitution of the…

Argues that the theoretical consensus on second language learning, which focuses on instruction in the target language, contradicts the main premises used by bilingual education advocates to gain respectability for bilingual education programs. The roles of translation, transfer, input, and interaction in the Eastman model of bilingual education,…