How does early educational quality affect longer-term academic outcomes? We shed light on this question via a natural experiment in the Philippines--the implementation of a mother tongue education policy in public schools in kindergarten to Grade 3. This policy led to an unexpected decline in educational quality, but differentially in a subset of…

This study tests a model that predicts the problem-posing performance of sixth-grade students (independent variable metacognition, mediator variables mathematics and native language course success scores at the end of the year). The research was conducted with the relational model. The results regarding the mediation effect indicated that the…

The deep cloze test was developed by Jensen and Elbro (Read Writ Interdiscip J 35(5):1221-1237, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-021-10230-w) to assess reading comprehension at the level of global situational understanding. In two independent studies, we examined potential contributors to students' scores on the deep cloze reading…

This article compares metalinguistic awareness among emerging bilingual and multilingual learners of English in Norwegian primary school. Participants were 120 students in grades 5-7 (aged 10-13) attending mainstream English classes in Norway and were divided into three groups based on a linguistic background questionnaire: an L1 Norwegian group,…

We investigated the role of socioeconomic status (SES) in the unfolding of vocabulary and text-comprehension skills in language minority bilingual children, who are educated exclusively in their L2. For comparison, a monolingual control group was also tested, consisting of children of the same age and schooling. We administered a synonyms task to…

Very few studies have investigated second language (L2) knowledge of word parts. The present study was set to measure L2 recognition of 35 English prefixes and the factors that might predict scores. The form and meaning sections of Sasao and Webb's Word Part Levels Test were administered to 152 Arabic learners of English as a foreign language…

This study examined whether the linguistic distance between the first (L1) and second (L2) language is a significant determinant of L2 writing skills of 292 adult immigrants from 39 different source countries, who were beginner learners of Spanish L2. Gender, age, length of residence in Spain, education level as a proxy for literacy skills in L1,…

We examined the influence of language and socioeconomic factors on academic achievement in the Basque Autonomous Community (BAC): a multilingual society with a recent history of language revitalisation. We analysed scores obtained by Grade 4 and Grade 10 students on a diagnostic mathematics test administered in either Basque or Spanish in the BAC.…

This paper examines the construct of bilingual phonemic awareness in Irish-English bilinguals. Though traditionally viewed as a skill or ability which transfers across languages, recent accounts have considered whether phonemic awareness has a language-specific component. This study used a cross-sectional design to examine this question. A total…

The ability of individuals to feel part of their culture highly depends on the extent to which they can use their native language and how they can manage linguistic processes. In this context, regardless of occupation or age, one needs to use the language in daily communication--an element maintaining the social order--correctly and in accordance…

This study introduces a novel learning management model aimed at enhancing Thai language proficiency in sixth-grade students. Confronting challenges such as inadequate teaching resources and a lack of student-centric, practical activities in current Thai language education, this model integrates six key components: foundational principles and…

This study examined how Papiamento and Dutch attitude and home literacy environment of 168 children in fourth grade of the post-colonial Dutch Caribbean, predicted L1 and L2 reading literacy in sixth grade. Overall, children had higher scores for reading literacy in L1 Papiamento as compared with L2 Dutch. They showed more positive attitudes…

This study explored the effect of metacognitive reading strategy intervention in English on helping Moroccan learners reversely transfer metacognitive reading strategies from English (L3) into French (L2). In particular, it investigated whether an improvement in metacognitive reading strategy in English (L3) would lead to an improvement in reading…

Authentic listening increasingly involves being able to pause or replay recordings as needed. In this study, we investigated differences in the reported use of listening strategies and listening anxiety between single-play and self-paced test administration. We also analyzed the interrelationships among first language (L1) literacy skills, second…

The current study investigates narrative retelling and comprehension among 30 native Arabic-speaking preschool children with a mean age of 5:10. Narrative features of text-complexity (less-complex and more-complex episodic structure) and language variety (Spoken Palestinian Arabic [PA] and Modern Standard Arabic [MSA]) were analyzed for their…