The most recent "Open Doors" report by the Institute of International Education (IIE, 2020) indicates that the number of non-white U.S. study abroad students has been steadily growing over the past 10 years, and now it accounts for 31% of all students pursuing part of their education abroad. This study focuses on four Spanish heritage…

The main objective of this qualitative case study was to analyze the feasibility of integrating an e-tandem mode into the language curriculum for the English major at the Universidad Técnica de Cotopaxi (UTC). We selected purposeful sampling that permitted us to deliberately choose participants. So, this study was conducted by eleven pre-service…

The Ecuadorian government has reported remarkable learning gains regarding the academic progress of students in the educational system. However, the academic gains for indigenous students have not been clearly demonstrated. This quantitative study aimed at understanding the progress of educational reforms in Ecuador for indigenous students. These…

This study sought to identify the challenges and needs of TOEFL iBT candidates in achieving C1 level scores in the speaking and writing sections of the exam. To this end, the researcher employed a mixed-method approach to collect data from a population of 46 students, both male and female, between the ages of 22 and 30. The participants were…

In Ecuador directors of Indigenous education administer a Kichwa proficiency exam as a requirement for employment. This article considers promises and challenges of the exam, such as how standardized language ideologies manifest in it, and what it says about how institutional knowledge is classed, racialized, and urbanized. Furthermore, though…

Global efforts for standards-based linguistic assessment increasingly hold that examinees should be tested in the language with which they are most familiar. Yet, language use still occurs differently from its characterization in exams, even as exams are increasingly developed in historically minoritized languages. Drawing from two years of…

The study examines performance on an evaluation instrument for classroom use for the purpose of improving instruction that focuses on awareness of language in reading and writing. Findings are reported on the piloting of the first in a series of literacy assessments with students from a rural elementary school in Ecuador. All students who…

The objective of this study is to examine the social profile of students who are enrolled in Basic General Education in Ecuador. Both a descriptive and multidimensional statistical analysis was carried out based on the data provided by the National Survey of Employment, Unemployment and Underemployment in 2015. The descriptive analysis shows the…

This compilation includes programmes which promote language and culture as resources and see them as an added value rather than a challenge for literacy teaching and learning. It also includes programmes designed to support migrants and refugees by equipping them for integration into mainstream society while strengthening their literacy skills in…

Ecuador's 2008 Constitution--and a subsequent law on higher education passed in its wake--effectively suspended student fees for public universities. The goal of this reform was to increase equality of opportunity. In this article I use newly-available individual-level retrospective information from the 2001 Census to explore gender and ethnic…