The purpose of this publication is to provide basic descriptive information about the 100 largest school districts (ranked by student membership, that is, the number of students enrolled at the beginning of the school year) for the 2004-05 school year in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Bureau of Indian Education, the…

In order to become "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion" the European Union realizes its people as the most important asset. Moreover, every human becomes a value for the whole society. It makes significant to…

The history, culture and practices of Central America are inadequately addressed in teacher preparation and professional development across the United States, and especially in California based on the author's analysis of teacher preparation. Information about the histories, cultures and practices add to the linguistic and pedagogic knowledge-base…

The major purpose of this study is to assist college students in constructing mental representation of referential resolution in a computer system. Ninety students were asked to draw mental maps indicating the relationships between references, take reading comprehension tests, and fill out open-ended questionnaire. Results showed that the…

This article reports the results of a preliminary study that applied a randomized posttest-only design to evaluate the effectiveness of a literacy curriculum that incorporated explicit opportunities for Spanish-speaking Head Start preschool children (N = 76) to develop writing abilities in English. The study also addressed English language…

In recent years, increasing emphasis has been put on pragmatic competence as part of foreign language curricula. This article analyzes the devices used by learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) in order to perform the "speech act of disagreement" in their L2. Data from 27 ESL learners were gathered by means of Discourse…

As EFL programs become more prevalent throughout the world, the cultural implications of English teaching are more often debated. These cultural considerations are extremely relevant in Islamic cultures, where English education can be viewed as contributing to the influence of Western Christian or secular pedagogy. This potential clash of…

The social reform and opening-up in Chinese society in the last three decades have resulted in overall changes in almost every aspect of social life of its people. As an important indicator in these changes, English has become an important tool in education for students to move ahead to a higher level of schooling, and better jobs in the…

In Spring 2006 California released its first ever school-level Academic Performance Index (API) scores for English Learners (ELs). These EL-API scores were based on California Standards Tests in English language arts and math taken in the spring of 2005. The new EL-API data make it clear that elementary schools vary widely in their ability to get…

This article reports on a study that investigated metacognitive knowledge or beliefs about language learning of 470 Turkish EFL learners in secondary education. The primary aims of the study were to explore what beliefs Turkish students in secondary education held about learning English as a foreign language (EFL), how their belief systems were…

High-stakes tests have been employed widely to engineer curriculum innovation, or achieve intended washback in education. But our understanding of the role of high-stakes tests as an agent for change is limited due to the small number of empirical studies available on this issue. This paper reports on a washback study which focuses on the writing…

The phenomenon of overused adjectives by non-native speaking learners (NNS) has been pinpointed by recent research. This study designed five online units for increasing students' awareness of underused specific adjectives for EFL college writing. Five units were developed for five identified overused adjectives: "important", "beautiful", "hard",…

Eight gifted and eight general-education students engaged in discussions regarding their observations of, experiences in, and recommendations for education. Six categories emerged through qualitative analysis of their conversations. These categories include: problem solving, task commitment, self-perceptions, education, communication, and…

This is a construct validation study of a second language speaking assessment that reported a language profile based on analytic rating scales and a composite score. The study addressed three key issues: score dependability, convergent/discriminant validity of analytic rating scales and the weighting of analytic ratings in the composite score.…

In this article, we take up the call for more multilayered and ethnographic approaches to language policy and planning (LPP) research by sharing two examples of how ethnography can illuminate local interpretation and implementation. We offer ethnographic data collected in two very different institutions--the School District of Philadelphia and the…