This dissertation focuses on changes in the organizational development of community-based organizations (CBOs) within the context of new patterns of immigration, in the United States. Organizational development is considered within the context of dialects of growth, change and transformation of communities in transition. The primary goal of this…

Many adolescent and adult L2 learners in language classrooms, both in the US and other countries, have little or no alphabetic print literacy. Language teachers may turn to SLA research for assistance, yet almost all research on oral SLA has focused on educated, highly-literate learners (Bigelow & Tarone 2004; Tarone, Bigelow & Hansen 2009). The…

Nurta Muktar, a 17-year-old refugee of Somali heritage, learned to read this school year at East High School. It likely would not have happened if East High did not provide classes in basic reading skills for English-language learners (ELLs). And the school likely would not have such classes, some Salt Lake City teachers say, if the U.S.…

This report provides an update on the Transitional Bilingual Instruction Program (TBIP). In 2012-13, 104,025 English language learners (ELLs) received state services through the TBIP. This was an increase of just over 9% from the previous year. Most students live in urban areas along Interstate 5 corridor and in rural areas like the Yakima Valley.…

This paper provides a description of the interactions between a nursery-aged prelingually deaf child and his specialist teacher recorded at four consecutive time points during the first year at school. The child comes from a hearing, Somali-speaking family where English is an additional language (EAL). Using Conversation Analysis procedures,…

Using data from a 2-year qualitative study, the author examines how East African Muslim immigrant youth experience and become shaped by the environments of U.S. mainstream schools compared with a culturally specific charter high school. Results from this study reveal that East African Muslim immigrant youth are affected by religious and cultural…

This article discusses the educational system of Morocco and the ways the country's multilingual history has influenced and continues to direct the choice of the languages used in schools. Suggestions that will eliminate cultural mismatch and thus facilitate interactions with Moroccan students and their families are included. The research focuses…

The theme for this year's College of Languages, Linguistics, and Literature at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa was "Engaged Language Research and Practice," with the plenary speech given by Dr. Kathryn A. Davis. Following a preface from the editors and plenary speaker highlights, contents of these proceedings include: Section I:…

The purpose of this study was to examine the development of English reading achievement among English Language Learners (ELLs) and to determine whether the time that an ELL's family was in the United States and the type of native language spoken affected their reading development. Participants were 300 third-grade ELLs from two different native…

The inclusion of English Language Learners as a subgroup in the No Child Left Behind legislation has leant additional importance to the need for valid and efficient measures of reading for students whose first language is not English. This study examines the use of Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) reading fluency as a predictor of later reading…

Despite Australia's strong tradition of research on language maintenance and shift, little is known about the ways in which migrant background students continue to use their heritage languages in Australian schools. This paper presents an in-depth case study of students' linguistic practices at a multiethnic Melbourne high school, where over 95%…

British Somaliland, a protectorate from which Christian missionaries were excluded, opened its first government-run school in 1938. The intention of the new director of education, Randall Ellison, was to use written Somali in preference to Arabic. This drew intense criticism from local religious leaders, and had to be abandoned. Accused of being a…

Although Nigeria's National Policy on Education provides for a multilingual policy involving the learning of a child's L1 or language of the immediate community (LIC), one of the three major or national languages (i.e. Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba) and English, this policy has not been effectively implemented. This paper reviews the problems and…

The Somali Bantu, arriving in the United States after many years in Kenyan refugee camps, face significant barriers to successful integration into American society. Those responsible for managing initial resettlement at the local level were not prepared to provide appropriate assistance to this group. The arrival of the Somali Bantu highlighted…

How do refugee students construct their lives in school in their host country? What are some difficulties that they face and how do they respond to those? Findings of a qualitative study conducted with female refugee students from Somalia indicate that students are to varying degrees active agents in the construction of their lives in a US urban…