During the era of accountability in K-12 schools in the U.S., school leaders' and teachers' responsibilities concerning language proficiency assessments extend beyond test administration and determination of eligibility for services. State and federal accountability systems challenge educators and school leaders to use language assessment results…

The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to determine if and to what extent an ELL student's SBELP-RC could predict his or her ACPELA-RC, ACPELA-WP, and ACP-A1. Study participants were ELL students in Grades 9 to 12, attending a Northern Virginia high school. A further purpose of this study was to investigate if and to what extent…

Many people want to learn a foreign language, but issues of time, convenience and cost mean that classes are often insufficient for learners, and increasingly learners are supplementing or replacing their classroom learning with online learning. The majority of existing online language learning systems use the traditional grammar-translation…

This study examines the impact of technology-mediated pedagogical tasks on students' willingness to communicate and communicative performance in the intermediate level of Spanish at Iowa State University. Drawing from the framework on technology-mediated tasks by Gonzalez-Lloret & Ortega, 2014, and the World-Readiness Standards for…

As the number of English Language Learners (ELLs) continues to grow in our country, schools are looking for ways to better identify and to help those who need English as a Second Language (ESL) services (Mossaad, 2016). ELLs present a unique challenge to school districts as some perceive that the federal guidelines are vague, but require school…

Considering the amount of funding that is distributed to educational research each year, leaders and policymakers have a vested interest in finding scientifically based evidence that answers causal questions regarding program effectiveness. The importance of program evaluation has long been recognized in many fields of research; however, the most…

This quasiexperimental single group design study investigated the validity of the Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT) to identify fourth and fifth grade students who are at-risk in vocabulary development. The subjects of the study were 88 fourth and fifth grade students at one elementary school in Washington State. The Group Reading Assessment and…

The academic achievement gap between ethno-linguistic minority students and other students, as represented by test scores, dropout rates, and college admissions and completion rates, is the most persistent and pressing challenge facing public schools nationwide. The existing achievement gap indicates that many of our students are not receiving the…

The traditional language laboratory consists of computer-based exercises in which students practice the language individually, working on language form drills and listening comprehension activities. In addition to the traditional approach to the laboratory requirement, students in the study participated in a weekly conversation hour focusing on…

This one-year study explores the possibility of integrating critical pedagogy into undergraduate English writing classes in Taiwan. The participants were the students in 2 first-year writing classes taught by the researcher. For these classes, I reinvented Freire's (2000) pedagogy of the oppressed, which emphasizes problem-posing, dialogue, and…

The purpose of this study was to ascertain whether students who enter high school in ninth grade and score proficient or advanced on their CST in English Language Arts remain proficient or advanced 2 years later in 11th grade. The effects of NCLB will be considered as a contributing factor to the difference in student scores. This study was…

A quasi-experimental research study was conducted to investigate the performance of English learners (ELs) on mathematics assessments when using interactive whiteboard (IWB)-based instruction as compared to text-based instruction. A sample of 47 seventh-and eighth-grade EL students from ABC Middle School (name has been changed) was included in…

This dissertation examined the status of data-based research in applied linguistics through an analysis of published research studies in nine peer-reviewed applied linguistics journals ("Applied Language Learning, The Canadian Modern Language Review / La Revue canadienne des langues vivantes, Current Issues in Language Planning, Dialog on Language…

Previous studies revealed mixed results in terms of the relative effects of implicit and explicit feedback: some found that explicit feedback worked more efficiently than implicit feedback; others found no difference between the two feedback types. These contrasting results called for further investigations into this issue, particularly examining…

A renewed focus on foreign language (FL) learning and speech for communication has resulted in computer-assisted language learning (CALL) software developed with Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR). ASR features for FL pronunciation (Lafford, 2004) are functional components of CALL designs used for FL teaching and learning. The ASR features…