The Muslim minority in Thrace is a heterogeneous group of people regarding their cultural and linguistic identities. It consists of Muslims of Turkish origin who speak Turkish as their mother tongue, of Pomaks, who speak Pomak, and of Roma, who speak Romani. Their educational-linguistic situation is fraught with long-lasting problems, which are…

The present work attracted our attention motivated by the need of seeking ways of helping people learning EFL, with certain "disabilities" than undertaking a research project by itself. The needs for implementing those special program in our country is out of the question, since to the extent that our society and country has been…

The Hispanic population and their high school dropout rates in the United States have greatly increased over the last several decades. This study investigates linguistic and cultural issues that may have an association with high school abandonment among migrant Hispanic students. Open-ended interview questions were posed to a bilingual education…

This paper describes a subset of results from a large-scale two-year independent evaluation study conducted with the "Scientists in School" (SiS) outreach program and two large school boards in Ontario, Canada. Specifically, it explores the responses of elementary students (n= 811) from typically underrepresented groups in science…

This report reviews high school dropout rates and related factors in rural high schools throughout 15 Southern and Southwestern states. These schools are in districts that are among the 800 rural districts with the highest student poverty rate nationally. Seventy-seven percent of the "Rural 800" districts and 87 percent of the students in them are…

This article reports on an intervention study of reading comprehension among young-beginner learners of French as a foreign language (L2) in England. A number of factors are currently contributing to low achievement in reading among this population of learners. Although research into reading strategies is extensive, and there is some evidence of…

Mother tongue education in separate schools has been in the norm for several of China's large minorities since 1949. In recent years, however, the shift in minority parental demand, media focus on low educational outcomes of mother tongue education combined with government concerns about separatism have led to the development of mixed schools for…

This research brief reports on findings from an on-line survey conducted by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to study state education agency capacity to develop and deploy a statewide system of support for schools identified for improvement under No Child Left Behind (NCLB). To provide support commensurate with the challenges facing…

"Reading Recovery"[R] is a short-term tutoring intervention designed to serve the lowest-achieving (bottom 20%) first-grade students. The goals of "Reading Recovery"[R] include: promoting literacy skills; reducing the number of first-grade students who are struggling to read; and preventing long-term reading difficulties. The…

Most K-12 evaluations are designed to make inferences about how a program implemented at the classroom or school level affects student learning outcomes and such inferences inherently involve hierarchical data structure. One methodological challenge for evaluators is linking program implementation factors typically measured at the classroom or…

High-achieving (HA) and low-achieving (LA), learning disabled (LD), and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) high school students were followed over two years of L2 study and compared on measures of L1 literacy (reading and writing) in elementary school, L1 cognitive ability, L2 aptitude, oral and written L2 proficiency, and L2 word…

Background: Almost every aspect of modern life is affected in some way by technology. Many people utilize technology from dawn to dusk to communicate; make decisions; reflect, gain, synthesize, evaluate or distribute information, among many other functions. One would be hard pressed to find a single professional, regardless of career field,…

This research explores if poor grammaticality judgments of late (age of arrival greater than or equal to 12) second language learners often attributed to being beyond the critical period for language acquisition can be better explained by processing difficulties due to (1) low L2 working memory capacity, (2) poor L2 decoding, and/or (3) inadequate…

Cognitive/Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) is a construct developed by linguists that distinguishes everyday conversational language and language used in literature and on academic tests. The "No Child Left Behind Act" has created impetus for scientifically researched pedagogy that serves to increase academic achievement of groups…

Reading difficulty is often the result of a host of interacting factors, including cognitive, linguistic, psychological, social, emotional, physical, and educational, but educational factors are at the heart of many instances of low achievement in English learning. This study explores the educational factors that failed Mei, a 14-year-old sixth…