With todays' students spending increasing amounts of time involved in online activities, there is a growing need to study their online reading habits. Indeed, it is not only students' out-of-class engagement with electronic media that calls for increased attention to the reading skill, in general, and online reading, in particular, but it is also…

This paper provides examples of activities that can be carried out by Spanish-speaking professors who are willing to step outside of the classroom walls with their students and participate in community projects--to help democratize the various forms of cultural capital as well as promote social justice and political awareness by working hand in…

This qualitative multiple comparative case study investigated attrition in online Spanish language courses, from both instructor and student perspectives. Attrition rates in online courses have been found to be up to 50% higher than attrition rates in face to face courses, when studying the phenomenon of attrition in higher education. Attrition is…

This article presents the results of an analysis of student perceptions about speakers of Spanish in the United States before and after participation in a university course on U.S. Spanish that incorporates a hands-on research component. Three arguments are made here: That these perceptions influence their day-to-day relationship with bilingual…

Today, English language learners (ELLs)--students whose primary language is other than English--are the fastest-growing major school population in the United States. Between 2000-01 and 2010-11, the number of these students, whose level of English proficiency is not sufficient to support learning in a regular English language classroom, rose 18…

Examined beliefs of Nebraska foreign language teachers who were involved in the Nebraska foreign language standards frameworks project about foreign language teaching and learning as they related to the processes of standards development. Results indicated that increases in teaching efficacy, professional advocacy, and standards-based conceptions…

Project addresses the challenge of providing Spanish instruction in small, rural, public, and private schools in Nebraska and Iowa. The project added Spanish to the curriculum by providing extensive support in technology hardware and software to non-Spanish-speaking classroom teachers who reinforce weekly Spanish classes taught by non-certified…

Computers, computer programs, and other novel and vivid technological applications to language learning can unintentionally redirect attentional resources and therefore increase the salience of unplanned as well as targeted features. Incidental activities such as keyboarding (Henry, 1992), manipulation of a mouse (Meunier, 1996), and other…

There has been a significant paradigm shift in foreign language pedagogy from measuring language achievement to measuring proficiency. The ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines (1986) sought to reach consensus about describing and measuring language abilities. With the widespread recognition of these Guidelines have come far-reaching changes in our…

Articles in the three Volume 5 issues of the National Network for Early Language Learning newsletter include: "Young Authors--A Double Success" (Carolyn Andrade); "Teacher Preparation for Elementary School Foreign Language Programs" (Carol Ann Pesola); "Strategies in a Small School Setting: The Filley FLES Program"…

The title, "Making Connections: From the Classroom to the World Beyond", underscores one of the basic principles of language teaching echoed in the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) "Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century". Teachers are constantly making connections in their…