While Canada's multiculturalism and bilingual education represent an opportunity for educational sectors to foster students' intercultural citizenship, in New Brunswick -- Canada's only officially bilingual province -- provincial language ideological debates (LIDs) may create structures impeding Anglophone French immersion (FI) students'…

Manipulating cognitive demands on second language (L2) tasks, along with the provision of recasts and its effects on L2 development, has motivated recent inquiry within task-based research. However, empirical evidence remains inconclusive as to the impact of task complexity, and it is unknown how it may affect heritage language (HL) development.…

This phenomenological study explores students' decision-making about whether to remain in an optional French immersion (FI) mathematics course in Grade 11, as well as students' subsequent experiences in their mathematics course of choice. Interview data were collected from 10 students who remained in FI mathematics and from six students who did…

The motivation of 145 learners of Chinese was examined in light of self-determination theory through a questionnaire survey. The results showed that the more learners felt they were learning Chinese because it was personally meaningful and fun, the more they engaged in the learning process. This orientation was promoted to the extent that learners…

This article offers an original review of research and reports about young Indigenous children's language development needs and approaches to meeting them. The review addresses not only children's acquisition of an Indigenous language but also their acquisition of other languages (e.g., English and French), because their progress in one linguistic…

Discusses the differences between first language learning and second language learning, examines arguments for and against an early start in second language learning and surveys recent and current practices in second language learning and teaching. (Author)

Proposes theory that the learning processes of first- and second-language learners are fundamentally the same, differing only in kinds of information used by both kinds of learners and the degree of automatization attained. Suggests designing second-language learning processes to simulate those occurring in natural settings. (Author/BK)

Discusses the advantages of a bilingual education, and in particular the benefits of mother tongue instruction on the learning of the second language. (AM)

Evidence that shows the value of free voluntary reading (FVR) for language acquisition and literacy development is reviewed. Additional evidence is reported showing the advantages of FVR as a source of ideas and information, contributor to life success, and inhibitor of verbal memory decline. (Contains 34 references.) (LB)

Reviews research that addresses the issue of transfers that take place in writing from the first to second language. Suggests that positive transfers appear more clearly in the process than in the product, in which they depend on the relative closeness of languages. (Author/VWL)

This article examines the evidence and arguments for and against the position that young children are better equipped to profit from foreign language studies than adults, with special reference to FLES programs. Adult and child learning patterns are compared, along with the formal and informal contexts of language acquisition. (CLK)

A discussion of language data suggesting that young bilinguals and monolinguals exhibit a similar sequence of acquisition of standard use of English prepositions and French auxiliaries. Two error analysis studies are summarized, results of them are applied to the Franco-Ontarian and Quebec sociolinguistic contexts, and implications are discussed.…

A review of the history of French immersion programs since their inception 15 years ago. The following topics are also addressed: a review of the findings of immersion research, new directions with regard to other forms of language teaching, quality of second language development, future research and teacher training. (AMH)

Reports a study which investigated the use of rational cloze procedure in conjunction with retrospection or introspection assessment techniques to examine how individuals understand text in both first and second languages, especially the use of contextual constraints. (MSE)

Results of a study of sound system acquisition of five-year-old students of English-as-a-second-language show that first- and second-language learners exhibit similar but not identical simplification processes, and that evidence for a common developmental sequence in acquisition of consonant sounds was limited. (MSE)