The vocabulary deficit shown by English Learners (ELs) has become evident among many educators over decades of research (Becker, 1977; Biemiller, 2001; Chall, Jacobs, & Baldwin, 1990; Hart & Riseley, 2003), and has shown that a student's limited vocabulary becomes a "major barrier to school success" (Graves, 2005, p. 18).…

It is often assumed that cross-linguistically more prevalent distinctions are easier to learn potentially due to their conceptual naturalness. Prior work supports this hypothesis in phonology, morphology and syntax but has not addressed semantics. This work aims to unravel the potential factors that contribute to the learnability and the…

Language learners need to map a continuous, multidimensional acoustic signal to discrete abstract speech categories. The complexity of this mapping poses a difficult learning problem, particularly for second language learners who struggle to acquire the speech sounds of a non-native language, and almost never reach native-like ability. A common…

Many of the international, supranational, national, and grassroots development organizations working in the field of education channel their efforts into capacity-building for teachers. My research examines the nexus of such international development by US-based organizations with national schooling systems by naming and theorizing this process as…

A reexamination of the traditional instruction of introductory computer science (CS) courses is becoming a necessity. Introductory CS courses tend to have high attrition rates and low success rates. In many universities, the CS department suffered from low enrollment for several years compared to other majors. Multiple studies have linked these…