The current study looks at whether bilinguals varying in language dominance show a processing advantage for idiomatic over non-idiomatic phrases and to what extent this effect is modulated by idiom transparency (i.e., the degree to which the idiom's figurative meaning can be inferred from its literal analysis) and cross-language similarity (i.e.,…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of the Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters program when implemented within Head Start programs by measuring children's language proficiency scores. Participants were kindergarteners concurrently enrolled in both a Head Start program and the Home Instruction for Parents of…

Recruiting certified bilingual teachers have been difficult since 2010 as new testing policies and exams are implemented. Advanced high levels of writing and speaking language proficiency are required from the bilingual education candidate to perform his or her job. This essay examines the impact of Texas language policy for bilingual education…

Dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs are framed to reflect pluralist discourses (de Jong, E. [2013]. "Policy Discourses and U.S. Language in Education Policies." "Peabody Journal of Education" 88 (1): 98-111) and affiliated language ideologies. The continued expansion of DLBE programs not surprisingly brings to…

Recent reports indicated that English Language Learners (ELLs) comprised about 5 million students who attended school in the United States this past year. The general problem was that male Hispanic ELL students are retained at a higher rate than their male counterparts in many states in the United States. The researcher specifically chose the…

The current study compared the difference in literacy achievement of students in grades K-3 between the four different bilingual program models allowed in Texas for supporting English Language Learners (ELLs). The purpose of this quantitative study focused on the difference in literacy achievement of English Language Learners (ELLs) in…

This study examines international students' study anxiety in a mid-sized university in Southeast Texas comparing their existing study anxiety along lines of nationality, gender, age, major, degree, and stage of education. It focuses on the students' perceptions and the dominant goal of this research was to investigate whether there is a…

This study examined how emergent bilingual children's English and Spanish proficiencies moderated the relationships between Spanish and English input at home (bilingual home language input [BHLI]) and children's oral language skills in each language. The sample comprised over 1,400 Spanish-dominant kindergartners in California and Texas. BHLI was…

In 4 word-translation experiments, we examined the different representational frameworks theory (Crutch & Warrington, 2005; 2010) that concrete words are represented primarily by category, whereas abstract words are represented by association. In our experiments, Chinese-English bilingual speakers were presented with an auditory Chinese word…

We explore the potential of a computer-adaptive decoding game in Spanish to increase the decoding skills and oral reading fluency in Spanish and English of bilingual students. Participants were 78 first-grade Spanish-speaking students attending bilingual programs in five classrooms in Texas. Classrooms were randomly assigned to the treatment…

The researchers explored the benefits, challenges and preferred methods of communication of those who took part in the "¡Guiamos!" online and face-to-face mentoring program. Participants included 21 novice pre-service teachers who served as mentees and 32 experienced educators of English language learners who served as mentors. To…

We explore the potential of a computer-adaptive decoding game in Spanish to increase the decoding skills and oral reading fluency in Spanish and English of bilingual students. Participants were 78 first-grade Spanish-speaking students attending bilingual programs in five classrooms in Texas. Classrooms were randomly assigned to the treatment…

We examined the direct impact of an ongoing, intensive, and structured professional development (PD) within an English-as-second-language (ESL) instructional intervention on (a) teachers' time allocation in cognitive--academic language proficiency (CALP) and (b) Spanish-speaking English language learners' (ELLs) CALP development from the second to…

Thirty-five elementary teachers participated in a yearlong professional development (PD) program that was designed to foster a culture of on-going teacher learning to promote the co-development of science and language literacy for English language learners (ELL). An explanatory design methodology was used to determine the degree to which science…

This study presents the results of four experiments in the framework of processing instruction conducted with four language learner groups (Spanish, "n"?=?43; German, "n"?=?46; Russian, "n"?=?44; and French, "n"?=?48; discussed in that order). In each experiment, the processing problem was held constant (the…