The school readiness of Head Start students has become a major concern in the United States. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore Head Start teachers' lived experiences and perceptions of the instructional behaviors necessary for preparing students for kindergarten. The study sample consisted of a purposive…

There is a need for schools to engage students in constructing scientific theories like practicing scientists in order to excel in the 21st century knowledge economy. An approach to engage students in constructing scientific theories is to enculturate students in doing science with language, which differs from the mainstream classroom…

Despite substantial correlational evidence of a relationship between morphological awareness and reading ability, there has been only limited intervention research conducted to document the effects of morphological awareness on various literacy outcomes, particularly reading comprehension, and almost no research comparing the relative…

Questioning the traditional reading instruction that overly emphasizes literal comprehension of texts, one of the authors conducted action research and revised her advanced-level Japanese reading course at a university by incorporating some principles from critical literacy. The "critical reading" course aimed at developing students' ability to…

In this article, the author outlines two general research approaches, within the education world, to these mass-mediated formations: "Deference" and "Denial." Researchers who recognize the social practices that give local meaning to mass media formations and ways of speaking do not attempt to recontextualize youth media in their own social…

This research is a high-resolution analysis of grade 6 (ages 11-12) children's interview transcripts about the operation of power stations, before and after teaching. The focus of the study was on how children's conceptual development is built at a discursive level, namely how language is used to express changes in their thoughts. The theoretical…

Since 1995, the population of English language learners (ELLs) in the United States has increased by an astonishing 57% (Maxwell 2009). Though ELLs come from many different backgrounds, they share the common challenge of learning English while responding to academic content demands. Part I of this two-part article provides key strategies every…

The use of mother tongue in teaching in a multilingual setting affects the way pupils learn. A melting pot and the educational center of the North, Baguio City, Philippines demands teaching strategies that not only adapt to the interplay of the different cultures and languages but give importance to them, too. Specifically, this paper analyzed the…

This article examines an established course on Popular Culture which is framed within the general educational model in an English-medium university. The article is organized into three parts: the underlining educational rationale for general educational courses, the course description, and the students' perspectives of their learning experience.…

This reflective article is based on an ethnographic case study of five transnational teachers of English in Mexico. These teachers had acquired English as children of Mexican immigrants to the U.S. At the time of the study, they were living and teaching in their parents' place of origin in rural Mexico. The intent of the article is to examine how…

This article reports the results of an action-research project that examines enhancing students' English learning processes through the selective use of their mother tongues with the aim of overcoming their reluctant attitudes toward learning English in the classroom. This study involves forty ninth-graders from an all-girls public school in…

This paper investigates the perceptions of teachers from one Sabaot dominated primary school in western Kenya regarding the medium of instruction (MoI) policy in different class levels. While their "ideal" MoI policy bears some resemblance to the official policy which advocates mother tongue (MT) as medium in lower primary and English in…

Task-based language learning involves the use of authentic tasks with a coherent process and concrete product as a means of planning, delivering and assessing a curriculum. In this article, we draw on our recent use of the descriptive apparatus of the "Common European Framework of Reference" (CEFR) to define and specify a dramatic task…

This study explored the role of school in promoting positive bicultural and bilingual identities through the encouragement of Spanish use in 7 Latino children in 1 kindergarten classroom in North Carolina. Using a case study approach, researchers collected data through participant observations and interviews to examine the classroom practices of…

The theories of practice of four novice bilingual teachers regarding their language choices during sheltered English instruction are presented. The investigation followed participants through their preservice program in an urban public university and their first year of teaching in bilingual classrooms. Findings from this study illustrate how…