orInverse relations, or "trade-off effects," are a common outcome of interlanguage development: a learner may increase performance in one linguistic domain while simultaneously decreasing performance in another. In this study, we investigate the relationships between one aspect of fluency (pause usage) and two aspects of syntactic…

Purpose: Language sampling is a critical component of language assessments. However, there are many ways to elicit language samples that likely impact the results. The purpose of this study was to examine how different discourse types and elicitation tasks affect various language sampling outcomes. Method: A diverse group of K-3 students (N =…

Purpose: Little research has been done exploring the nature of multilingual students who are not categorized as English language learners (ELLs) in English language arts (ELA) classes. This study about a group of multilingual girls in an ELA class led by a monolingual white teacher aims to show how, when a teacher makes space for translanguaging…

Purpose: Emergent bilinguals (EBs) from Spanish-speaking households are a sizable and quickly growing segment of the preschool population in the United States. However, there is limited research on the provision of opportunities for EBs to engage in language-rich classroom discussion, particularly in English-dominant contexts where most EBs attend…

Second language classroom interaction has unique characteristics. The purpose of this paper is to describe the linguistic resources that teachers draw on to encourage social interaction in the EFL classroom. This examination includes a detailed analysis of the practical activities teachers engage in, focusing on their use of linguistic repertoires…

This paper examines the ways in which parents of multilingual deaf children (are able to) participate in annual individualized education plan (IEP) meetings mediated by both signed and spoken language interpreters. Data are drawn from an ethnographic, discourse-analytic study conducted in a U.S. school district and informed by the ethnography of…

This study reports on a small-scale, longitudinal investigation on L2 Spanish oral development by English-home language (EHL) learners in an English/Spanish Two-Way Immersion (TWI) program in rural, eastern United States. It examined EHL learners' oral ability in L2 Spanish based on longitudinal assessment data from Kindergarten, Grade 2, and…

The current study investigated the possibility that language switches could be relatively automatically triggered by context. "Single-word switches," in which bilinguals switched languages on a single word in midsentence and then immediately switched back, were contrasted with more complete "whole-language switches," in which…

This study examines the manifestations of purity and authenticity in 47 Basque bilinguals' reactions to code-switching. The respondents listened to two speech extracts with code-switching, filled in a short questionnaire and talked about the extracts in small groups. These conversations were then recorded. The respondents' beliefs can be…

Expanding on the studies of Hernandez (2008) and de la Fuente (2009), this investigation examines the combined effect of explicit instruction (EI) and input flood (IF) vs. IF alone on students' use of discourse markers to narrate a past event. Participants included 91 English-speaking adults enrolled in fourth-semester college Spanish courses,…

This article adds to the growing body of research focused on second-language (L2) variation and constitutes the first large-scale study of the production of potentially variable grammatical structures in Spanish by English-speaking learners. The overarching goal of the project is to assess the range of forms used and the degree to which native and…

This article compares spoken discourse models in Spanish as a second language textbooks and online language learning resources with naturally occurring conversations. Telephone service encounters are analyzed from the point of view of three different dimensions of authenticity: linguistic, sociolinguistic, and psycholinguistic. An analysis of 20…

Addresses the topic of discourse markers and, using the concepts of denial and contrast, with modifications, examines markers of contrast in English and Spanish. The article shows that the markers in each language correspond very closely in what they signal about the interpretation of the utterances of which they are a part. (Nine references)…

This study focuses on the characteristics of discourse between Latino immigrant children and their teacher during science instruction. Peer interaction was analyzed to identify the use and importance of the native language (L1) for the development of content knowledge during group collaboration. In addition, the interaction between teacher and…

The use of observation of natural language interaction as a measure of language proficiency and the impact of discourse characteristics on children's use of Spanish and English as measured by length of utterances are examined. The goal of this observational approach to measuring language proficiency is to distinguish between the effects of change…