Vocabulary is an area that requires foreign language learners to work independently and continuously both in and out of class. In the Japanese EFL setting, for example, more than 97% of the population experiences approximately six years of English education at secondary school during which time they are required to learn approximately 3,000 words…

The present investigation examines English speakers' ability to identify and discriminate non-native consonant length contrast. Three groups (L1 English No-Instruction, L1 English Instruction, and L1 Finnish control) performed a speeded forced-choice identification task and a speeded AX discrimination task on Finnish non-words (e.g.…

Using translanguaging as a theoretical foundation, this paper analyses findings from a Grade 2 reading class for low achieving students, where Malay was used as a scaffold to teach English. Data come from one class in one school in Singapore and its Learning Support Programme (LSP), which is part of a larger research project on biliteracy. The LSP…

Discourse connectives are important indicators of textual coherence, and mastering them is an essential part of acquiring a language. In this article, we compare advanced learners' sensitivity to the meaning conveyed by connectives in an off-line grammaticality judgment task and an on-line reading experiment using eye-tracking. We also assess the…

This study examines the effectiveness of cooperative reading teaching activities and independent reading activities for English language learner (ELL) students at 4th grade level. Based on simple linear regression and correlational analyses of data collected from two large data bases, PIRLS and NAEP, the study found that cooperative reading…

We report a study that uses retrospective analysis to understand the relationships between American and Chinese participants' utterances during a conversation and the moment-by-moment feelings and reactions they subsequently described. Intercultural and intracultural pairs of Chinese and American participants talked about a fictional crime story…

English foreign language (EFL) literacy achievement is a major challenge for EFL pupils in Israel. To better understand this challenge, this study used a quantitative approach to examine differences between experienced and preservice EFL teachers' content knowledge of the English orthography and the impact of a semester course on this knowledge. A…

This article analyses aspects of the impact of internationalisation in higher education in multilingual contexts where both a state language and a minority language are present and where English is gradually being introduced. The analysis focuses primarily on the consequences for the professional identities of academics who work in a minority…

This study documents the experiences of volunteer teacher research assistants in relation to pupils' interaction with parents, texts, and informal literacy practices in the community, and considers how these practices may enhance literacy instruction and production of local reading materials. The research site was located in the context of…

Listening comprehension plays a key role in language acquisition, yet little is known about the variables that contribute to the development of second language (L2) listening ability. This study sought to obtain empirical evidence for the impact of some of the learner variables and the degree to which they might predict success in L2 listening.…

Research on content and language integrated learning (CLIL) has expanded substantially in the last 10 years. While research interests have predominantly focused on language learning outcomes and the comparison between CLIL and English as a foreign language (EFL) students' competence in the foreign language, recent studies have called for the need…

This report summarizes highlights from the Austin Independent School District Dual Language Program rubric classroom observations conducted in October 2015. Observers rated several aspects of program implementation according to the rubric and provided comments about classroom practices observed.

Different regions of the world are making increasing demands for educational reform, especially when institutions are dissatisfied with the level of proficiency of their graduates. Since the realization of how important English education is to global success, reform to English education is becoming progressively vital in societies all over the…

Prior research has demonstrated that teachers' professional knowledge and motivation are strongly related to students' learning and motivation. Symptoms of teachers' stress and burnout (e.g., emotional exhaustion) are also thought to influence students' achievement, but no empirical study has tested this prediction. Using multilevel analyses and a…

This study compared bilingual and monolingual school beginners on measures of simple and complex verbal working memory and receptive and expressive vocabulary. The aim was to determine whether the tests of working memory are fairer measures of language ability than the vocabulary tests for bilingual children when tested in their second language.…