The study sought to investigate the role played by language in the academic performance of science students at a high school in the Free State province, South Africa who are taught through a language different from their mother tongue. The paper reports on the decisive mantle language plays in the comprehension and subsequent scholastic…

Language learning and the development of language proficiency are central concerns in the study of immigrant adaptation. This paper analyzes the social construction of language proficiency among Indigenous Guatemalan Maya youth in the United States--specifically, undocumented young adults who migrated to Los Angeles, California as unaccompanied…

Building on research that has demonstrated the benefits of Dual-Language Bilingual Education (DLBE) programmes on students' bilingual, academic, and cross-cultural development (Lindholm-Leary and Hernández 2011), this study examines the links between dual language proficiency and competence in elementary students enrolled in a Cantonese DLBE…

In 2016, our university launched its Academic Integrity Program (AIP) in order to promote and protect academic integrity. All commencing students must complete this online AIP within 14 days of starting their course. Satisfactory completion of this module with a test score of 80% is required before students can access their course materials.…

We investigate the extent to which language versions (English, French and Arabic) of the same science test are comparable in terms of item difficulty and demands. We argue that language is an inextricable part of the scientific literacy construct, be it intended or not by the examiner. This argument has considerable implications on methodologies…

We assessed the roles of first language (L1) and second language (L2) proficiency in the processing of preverbal clitics in L2 Spanish by considering the predictions of four processing theories--the Input Processing Theory, the Unified Competition Model, the Amalgamation Model, and the Associative-Cognitive CREED. We compared the performance of L1…

This study investigates how figurative language is processed by learners of a second language (L2). With an experiment testing L2 comprehension of figurative expressions in three categories, each combining shared and unshared first language (L1) and L2 lexical representations and conceptual representations in a different way, the study…

As part of the "Bridging the Language Gap" project undertaken with 86 State and Catholic schools across Queensland, the language competencies of Indigenous students have been found to be "invisible" in several key and self-reinforcing ways in school system data. A proliferation of inaccurate, illogical and incomplete data…

This study used ERP (event-related potentials) to examine both the role of the L1 and the role of individual differences in the processing of agreement violations. Theories of L2 acquisition differ with regard to whether or not native-like acquisition of L2 features is possible (Schwartz and Sprouse, 1994, 1996; Tsimpli and Mastropavlou, 2007),…

This case study was conducted at a large four year institution of higher education located in southern California. The purpose was to answer the question, "What are international graduate students' perceptions of the connection between English language proficiency and academic success?" The participants were six international graduate…

This report presents stories of six teachers who believe in the power and promise of immigrant students and English language learners. Their stories begin to help readers understand the assets these groups of students bring to classrooms, the challenges they--both students and teachers--face, and the role that teachers and schools play in their…

Many researchers and the International Test Commission's (Hambleton, 2005) caution against treating scores from different language versions of a test as equivalent, without conducting empirical research to verify such equivalence. In this study, we evaluated the equivalence of English and Malay versions of a 9th-grade math test administered in…

Given the raised graduation requirement of the proficiency Enhancement Program (PEP) to attain proficiency levels of "2+," "2+," and "2," the importance of target language use has been highly emphasized across language schools at Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC). This article discusses some of the challenges associated…

Over the last four generations, the language patterns in Maine's bilingual Franco-American communities have undergone a shift characterized by a widespread adoption of English and a decline of the ethnic language. The younger generations generally are unable or unwilling to use the French language and they express negative attitudes towards that…

Properties of maintenance and loss of Spanish/English bilingualism were investigated in 308 high school students of Mexican background. Key variables investigated included: (1) actual and self-reported proficiencies in Spanish and English; (2) self-reported language choice behavior in various settings; and (3) language attitude. The biggest…