The status of English language education in Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam) in the era of Doi Moi, or economic structuring that began in 1986, is analyzed. Background information is given on the history of English language training in Vietnam since 1975, the municipality of Ho Chi Minh City, the emergence of Doi Moi policy, policy concerning licensing…

The development of high school Japanese language programs (JLPs) in Oregon has been remarkable since the 1980s. However, high school students educated in Japanese face problems of articulation as they enter the JLP at the University of Oregon. Because little attention has been paid to the problem of articulation, a study of these students'…

To help provide writing instruction to elementary school children who are taught English as a second language, a writing project was designed for three ESL students: a third grader from Japan, a fourth grader from Costa Rica, and a fifth grader from Indonesia. The goals of the project were to help the students find writing to be enjoyable and…

After a brief literature review, this paper examines the problem of defining literacy. It emphasizes the importance of using a flexible definition based on learners' needs and goals in social contexts in determining the goals of literacy instruction. In order to illustrate the wide variation in not only students' levels of English-language…

Designed to be integrated into a regular language arts curriculum in grades 1-3, the program begins with a review of the recent history of elementary second language programs in the United States and a discussion of the direction the movement might take in the 1980s. Research done on nonintensive, nonbilingual second language programs in the past…

A program designed to improve higher-order thinking skills in secondary school students of Spanish as a second language is reported. Deficiency in higher order thinking was documented through teacher-constructed tests, students' oral presentations in Spanish, teacher observation journals, and student reflection logs. Analysis showed the students…

The development and implementation of a high school program bringing together 8 limited-English-proficient Hispanic students and 20 students of Spanish as a foreign language is described. The program's objective was to improve relations and decrease linguistic and cultural separation between the two groups. The approach used was multicultural,…

An action research project implemented a program for improving the conversational skills of language impaired high school students. The students attended high school in a northwest suburb of Chicago, Illinois. Poor conversational skills in the language impaired students were documented through teacher observation, teacher assessment, and…

This thesis describes a peer observation program implemented among American and Japanese teachers in the English Department of Hiroshima College of Foreign Languages, a two-year vocational college in Hiroshima, Japan. Each participant functioned as both an observer and observee, while pre- and post-observation meetings were held between the…

A program to improve social studies reading comprehension among students of English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) was developed in the form of a practicum for use in an exemplary new school in Florida. Participants were five ESOL students, aged 9-11, with widely varying English proficiency, and a group of fifth grade teachers responsible…

An action research study described and evaluated a program for improving the reading comprehension of targeted first, second, and third grade students, in a progressive suburban community in northern Illinois. The problem was noted by the researchers, who in recent years had observed a need for improvement in reading comprehension as indicated by…