In their new book, Alison L. Bailey and Margaret Heritage illustrate how to help students become more self-regulated learners--that is, to be able to monitor and take charge of their own learning when working independently and in groups. Language provides the foundation for the development of self-regulatory skills, enabling students to express…

Language is the essence of humanity and the backbone of early childhood education. Academic content clusters on it. Math, science, and social studies, for instance, are best taught through "content area language." Critical thinking and other key math, listening, and reading comprehension skills are mirrored in language. Not surprisingly, spoken…

Students with learning disabilities have significantly lower achievement in math and science than students from the general population. If these students with learning disabilities also are English Learners, the challenges for success in math and science are even more difficult. Teachers need to infuse best practices into their classrooms to…

The Workshop on the Role of Language in School Learning: Implications for Closing the Achievement Gap was held to explore three questions: What is known about the conditions that affect language development? What are the effects of early language development on school achievement? What instructional approaches help students meet school demands for…

The five papers in this issue cover a range of perspectives on the acquisition and use of the Spanish copulas "ser" and "estar" in a variety of contexts, including language contact, bilingual language acquisition, and classroom second language learning. The fact that these papers cite work in this area as far back as the early part of the 20th…

This paper presents a theoretical account for how learners might draw upon L1 lexical and conceptual knowledge when making assumptions about connections between words in the L2 lexicon. It is suggested that L1 lexical knowledge can be both a help and a hindrance when forming L2 connections, particularly in respect to collocations. Furthermore,…

Contends that there are far more terms associated with war and conflict than terms about peace in the English language. Asserts that this circumstance is both a product of and a contribution to national values. Recommends using more emotional words and speech to talk about peace. (CFR)

Discusses the implications of the tendency of adult second-language learners to develop a well-structured, simple form of language outside the classroom, i.e. the Basic Variety (BV). Focuses on the structural properties of the BV, the status of these properties and the reasons why some structural properties of "fully fledged" languages are more…

The third year of an ongoing research project to document and evaluate an innovative Japanese language program in grades K-5 (n=195) is reported. Two strands of research are examined. The first deals with school and community ambiance, and attempts to capture in a systematic way the attitudes and perceptions of parents, teachers, and students in…

In the past, phonics instruction has done little to lessen the difficulties that many poor readers have with decoding words quickly and accurately enough to construct meaning from text. Based on an analysis of the research literature in decoding and a four-year cycle of program development, a new program was created for teaching decoding to poor…

The discussion of corpus planning for the Southern Quechua language variety of Peru examines issues of graphization, standardization, modernization, and renovation of Quechua in the face of increasing domination by the Spanish language. The efforts of three major groups of linguists and other scholars working on language planning in Peru, and the…

Describes a self-instruction procedure designed to provide students of science and technology at the tertiary level with a basic vocabulary in a foreign language of around 1,000 items. The technique represents an efficient method for bridging the gap between the vocabulary that beginning L2 students possess and that required to read L2 scientific…

This report describes a project to research and create a lesson book and audiotape cassette to help adult English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) learners acquire specific language skills, vocabulary, and oral practice for communicating confidently and effectively with their children's teachers. The report describes the procedures for development and…