Using digital stories to have students tell about themselves, share their culture with the class, and learn from each other can help with establishing rapport, shows respect for different cultures, and can be motivating for students and their language teachers. However, what happens after that? After making their first video, students have some…

In 2014, the University of Aizu was accepted for participation in Japan's national TOP Global University (TGU) initiative. In this paper, we describe our use of video interviewing to prepare Japanese students for our Global Experience Gateway study abroad TGU project. Our university specializes in computer science education at undergraduate and…

The potential of wikis for learning has recently begun to capture the attention of English as a second/foreign language (ESL/EFL) research. While students' collaboration, attention to form, and perceptions of wikis in document mode have been widely addressed in previous research, the educational value of wikis used in thread mode, as discussion…

The goal of this study was to design and evaluate fluency-based training units to help students eliminate inconcision. Participants first completed a 1.5-hr lesson on writing concisely and then a 5-min test during which they edited sentences containing inconcise text from the training units. Subsequently, participants were randomly assigned to an…

The present study investigates heritage learners' recognition of native-like and non-native-like mood selection in Spanish volitional constructions along two dimensions: age of onset of bilingualism in English (operationalized as age of arrival) and language use. Thirty-two heritage learners completed a grammaticality judgment (GJ) and an editing…

Within the paradigm of Sociocultural Theory, and using Activity Theory as a data-gathering and management tool, this microgenetic case study examined the processes--the growth, change, and development--engaged in by student-teachers in a foreign language education program as they worked together to complete an activity. The activity involved…

A number of studies have found that writers produce text in bursts of language. That is, when creating a text, writers produce a few words, pause, produce a few more words, pause, and so on. Chenoweth and Hayes (2003) hypothesized that language bursts occur when writers translate ideas in to new language. This study tested this hypothesis against…

Trends in the use of the Internet in recent years, collectively coined Web 2.0, have precipitated changes in modes and uses of writing online. Blogs and social networking sites provide new opportunities and incentives for personal writing. This reading-to-write culture requires use and development of language skills. The challenge for language…

Dr. Charles W. Stansfield is widely recognized as one of the most important figures in contemporary language testing. He is respected and relied upon by leading language professionals in education, government agencies, academia, and the private sector. During his 40 years of working with languages, he has been a secondary school teacher of…

The author looks at how today's technology affects basic communication skills. She examines technology versus communication skills, the continuing need for communication skills, who should teach communications, and teaching communication skills effectively (including basic language skills, writing skills, composing the message, dictation skills,…

Defining "functional documents" as those such as regulations, contracts, and policies that people must read in order to act, this paper posits the need for a revision principle by which writers can structure such documents to meet readers' needs. The first part of the paper describes a research project that uncovered some needs of…

To determine if people who wrote legal documents could read such documents with understanding and rewrite them to be understandable to the general public, eight experienced government writers were asked to rewrite a portion of a government regulation for a general audience. The writers--four lawyers and four nonlawyers--were audio recorded as they…

This dissertation study examined the reliability and validity claims of a modified version of the Spanish Modern Language Association Foreign Language Proficiency Test for Teachers and Advanced Students administered at George Mason University (GMU). The study used the 1999 computerized GMU version that was administered to 277 test-takers via…

The theoretical language-skills model of James Britton can be used to explain the usefulness of reading instruction in developing competence in writing at the college level. Britton's model of writing, adjusted for mature writers, involves four stages: prewriting, writing, reconsidering, and editing. The first two stages, prewriting and writing,…

Cognitive and affective responses to one authentic and three edited texts were examined with four levels of university-level learners of Spanish. Results indicated that all students comprehended significantly more from the authentic passage than from the edited ones and also responded more favorably to the authentic passages. (Contains 47…