Highlights ways of channelling students' passion for English music through motivating second-language activities. The article presents useful class activities involving introducing songs in the second-language classroom. As culture capsules, songs offer insights into the second culture and contextualize new language information. (10 references)…

Investigates whether home-based repeated reading with an audio model is a significant supplement to the literacy instructional program of second-language learners. Finds that all five participating second-language learners received substantial benefit from the opportunity to practice reading books with audiotapes at home, and that the support…

Describes the reading development of two Hispanic children during their first-grade year. Uses a qualitative, "confessional" narrative genre. Portrays their literacy emergence in relation to the teacher's expectations and the classroom balanced reading program. Interprets the children's reading development in light of current controversies in…

Studies Chinese bilingual readers' nonverbal responses (vividness of imagery and emotional response) to a text in English and in Chinese. Finds readers of English text did not understand the passage as well as readers of the Chinese version; however, imagery and affect were formed even in the absence of total understanding, showing they are…

To investigate the relationship between speech and meaning, a word recognition study was conducted that required 20 beginning learners of Chinese to pronounce and later identify in English 46 Chinese words. The correlational analysis indicated a significant relationship between being able to pronounce and being able to identify Chinese words.…

Examined the nature of Turkish students' motivation to read. Objectives were to explore the mean level of Turkish students' reading motivation; to identify students' reading frequencies; and to understand the relation between their reading motivations and their reading frequencies. Students completed the Motivations for Reading Questionnaire and…

Compares reading and spelling development of native Dutch-speaking children and minority children in the first two grades. Finds that the minority children kept up with the native Dutch-speaking children on word blending and word decoding tasks, but not on spelling and reading comprehension. Suggests that children learning to read in a second…

Our research reflects the current trend to relate individual differences in second language learning to underlying cognitive processes e.g., Robinson, 2002. We believe that such investigations, apart from being of practical importance, can also shed light on the cognitive mechanisms underlying the language learning process. Here we focus on the…

Assessment in 2nd and foreign language learning has often centered on proficiency, although motivation has been shown to be critical in learning in general, as well as in 2nd and foreign language acquisition specifically. One of the issues relevant to the assessment of motivational processes in this area is that of cultural differences. In much of…

The role of background knowledge in second language (L2) reading has received much attention in pedagogical research through theoretical paradigms such as schema theory, mental models, scripts, and expectations. The recent culture goals of the National Standards (1999) have provided new direction for research in Interactive reading models, as…

This article reports on an investigation into the language learning beliefs of students of French in England, aged 16 to 18. It focuses on qualitative data from two groups of learners (10 in total). While both groups had broadly similar levels of achievement in French in terms of examination success, they differed greatly in the self-image they…

This study examined the effect of structural and content characteristics of language tasks on foreign language learners' conversational negotiations. In a 2x2 Greco-Latin square design, degree of structural support of language tasks, students' degree of familiarity with German video segments, and task order were varied. Twenty-eight pairs of…

It has long been recognized that varying achievement goals elicit varying motivational patterns with varying behavioral consequences. Several sets of contrasting goal orientations have been proposed to explain differences in language students' achievement behaviors. A total of 135 third-year (n = 54 male; n = 81 female) students in a preservice…

Given the growing use of mobile devices, there is now increasing interest in the potential for supporting the mobile learner. However, there remains much research to be undertaken, to find effective ways of facilitating learning with mobile devices. This paper considers how to support the mobile language learner using a handheld computer. It…

This article discusses the benefits of hosting a German Immersion Day for area high school students on college campuses. Not only does an immersion experience benefit the students and teachers who participate, but it also serves to attract new students of German to the college and helps to create smoother articulation between high school and…