This study evaluates the potential for incidentally learning early reading vocabulary through the extensive viewing (EV) of children's movies/television with subtitles. Recent research has investigated how much exposure to important vocabulary EV and extensive reading (ER) provides. Investigations compute the number of repetitions of target…

The word gap, or the language gap, can be traced back to Hart and Risley's 1995 seminal work on language practices in high- and low-income families, and it is one of the most widely cited explanations for why children from low-income, minority contexts underperform academically in contrast to their white, middle-income counterparts. Despite its…

Both early childhood maternal language input and the quality of classroom instruction in elementary school have been shown to be important environmental supports in predicting children's literacy skill development. However, no studies have simultaneously examined these two environmental supports in relation to children's early language skills and…

The research studied the effectiveness of the integration of Facebook as a flexible ubiquitous learning space into the educational process for speaking skills development of undergraduate students learning English as a second language. For this purpose teaching was organised via a specially created and moderated Facebook group where various media…

This article promotes literacy as a a powerful tool for learning new language. Although learners frequently think of comprehensible input as language that is heard, comprehensible input from print can also be accessed. Research has shown that reading has a powerful impact on language learning: much of the vocabulary that educated adults know has…

The present study examined lexical richness in maternal input to Turkish preschool children in the Netherlands and the relationship with their vocabulary. Fifteen Turkish mother-child dyads were videotaped at the age of 3 and 4 in three settings: book reading, picture description and block building. Children's vocabulary in Turkish was measured at…

In Mauritius, English, the least socially used language, is the main language of literacy and the main written medium of instruction throughout the education system, starting from the first year of compulsory primary education. The importance of English as a school language is reflected in the 2003 Preschool Curriculum Guidelines, which mention…

Previous studies have highlighted early differences in bilinguals' rate of language acquisition in comparison with monolinguals. However, these differences seem to disappear with increasing age and exposure to the language, and do so quicker in dominant community languages than in minority status languages. This study aimed to replicate these…

This study proposed that captioned television, as a multi-sensory, largely entertaining medium might be an important source of comprehensive input for bilingual students in learning language and literacy. To explore this issue, the study investigated the following questions: (1) can bilingual students acquire vocabulary incidentally through…