This study explores the degree of language knowledge of Japanese living in Catalonia and their perceptions of the two particular languages used in this multilingual/bilingual society. The data on language proficiency was obtained via a questionnaire survey which was evaluated by the subjects themselves and analysed by means of correspondence…

Paul Leslie Gardner pioneered the study of student difficulties with everyday words presented in the science context (Gardner 1971); several similarly designed studies (e.g. Cassels and Johnstone 1985; Tao in "Research in Science Education," 24, 322-330, 1994; Farell and Ventura in "Language and Education," 12(4), 243-254,…

This study reports the major findings of an in-depth survey and interview with a group of students and parents who recently immigrated to the U.S. from Korea. The study was conducted to identify how they engage in out-of-school English language use and to what extent parents and teachers are involved and supportive in the process. All the…

The use of English-origin spontaneous loanwords (e.g., "la babysitter," "el counter," etc.) in otherwise Spanish discourse is criticized by many as a strategy that bilinguals use to compensate for a lack of lexical knowledge in Spanish. The purpose of the current research is to examine the question of lexical proficiency as a…

This paper first surveys three kinds of learner interview corpora (LINDSEI, NICT-JLE Corpus, and Trinity Lancaster Corpus), paying particular attention to their interview structures. Then, it explains the principles and features of the ICNALE Spoken Dialogue (ICNALE SD), which includes 425 videos and approximately 1.6-million-word transcripts of…

Compensation Strategies (CpSs) are strategies which a language user employs in order to achieve his intended meaning when precise linguistic forms are for some reasons not available at that point of communication. Different factors may influence the use of CpSs, among which the level of language proficiency is one of the most important ones. The…

For children from immigrant families, opportunities to develop additive bilingualism exist, yet bilingual attainment has varied widely. Given the significance of language development opportunities in home settings, this study examines the home language use of 20 second-generation children (ages 6-8) of Mexican and Korean descent in the United…

The focus of this paper is on Lithuania, where government policies continue to limit the use of Russian in education, the public space and the media, while the local economy has recognized proficiency in Russian as a commodity. This is particularly salient in the healthcare industry that grew significantly in the past years with patients from…

This dissertation explores the identity enactments (Bucholtz & Hall, 2005) of 14 multilingual university writing center tutors and multilingual student writers who use English and Putonghua to negotiate their interactions. The study is situated within sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, 1978) and uses ethnographic methods such as observation,…

This case study focuses on one primarily Latino public primary school in New Jersey that waived the state's bilingual education requirement and implemented a curricular alternative, comprised of bilingual and monolingual English classrooms. A corpus was generated from one-to-one interviews (N = 8) with administrators and teachers, as well as…

Due to ever-increasing demands to acquire effective communicative abilities in the English language, increasing numbers of international students choose to study in Western tertiary institutions; however, they frequently encounter difficulties in performing satisfactorily in English. This study aims to identify specific challenges that Japanese…

Oral Proficiency Interviews (OPIs) are widely used to measure speaking ability in a second or foreign language. The Michigan English Language Assessment Battery (MELAB) Speaking Test is an OPI used for academic and professional purposes around the world. However, little research on this or other OPIs has quantitatively compared test takers' speech…

It is commonly believed that intensive English programs (IEP) are designed to immerse learners in an English-speaking environment to help them effectively develop their language skills. Therefore, despite countless studies on the importance of a learner's first language (L1) in second language learning, some IEPs enforce English-only policies that…

This study reports an empirical study of an explicit instruction of corpus-aided Business English collocations and verifies its effectiveness in improving learners' collocation awareness and learner autonomy, as a result of which is significant improvement of learners' collocation competence. An eight-week instruction in keywords' collocations,…

This conceptual paper advances the notion of "English as corporate language" in the multilingual reality of multinational companies (MNC) with novel insights from the English as lingua franca (ELF) paradigm of sociolinguistics. Inspired by Goffman, Erving. 1959. "The presentation of self in everyday life." New York: Doubleday.…