This report describes a United Arab Emirates University training program for teacher educators. The program was designed to improve both the overall quality of English language instruction in the country and the English language proficiency level of students by the time they enter higher education, through both instructional improvement and…

One college instructor's methods of incorporating global issues into advanced classes of English as a Second Language are described. The objectives are to enable students to identify, access, organize, interpret, and respond to information about world affairs in print and non-print forms from diverse sources, and to enable them further to analyze…

Using sources such as personal observation, personal communication, and published literature, this essay identifies issues that have accounted for Foreign Languages in Elementary Schools (FLES) programs' failure to survive. Seven essential elements of a successful foreign language program in the elementary school are identified and discussed: (1)…

The report presents results of a study of elementary and secondary school two-way bilingual immersion programs that focused on the program and contextual factors affecting student learning, student and teacher language use in the classroom, and teaching strategies used to promote target language use and increase language proficiency. The study…

A middle school teacher describes the process by which she discovered a collaborative approach to teaching writing to a class including English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students. To create a meaningful writing experience, she had students prepare a personal narrative, starting by having the class generate endings to the sentence beginning "I'll…

The New Britain Public Library (Connecticut) conducted a project that involved recruitment, collection development, tutoring, computer-assisted services, and English as a Second Language (ESL) services. The project served a community of 50,000-100,000 and targeted ESL learners. Tutoring was done one-on-one, in small groups, and in classes, using…

A study investigated the attitudes of language program students, teachers, and administrators concerning the effectiveness of Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) instruction for adults, and specifically concerning EXITO courseware, a Spanish language program developed by the Central Intelligence Agency. Interviews with an adult language…

A report examines the situation of adult education for immigrants and refugees in Australia. The first section situates the nation's immigration program within national economic development. The second section outlines the development of policy and programs relating to language and literacy education for migrants and refugees, and describes how…

An alternative assessment instrument developed to assess oral language skills of students in Spanish immersion programs in the United States is described. Originally developed by the Center for Applied Linguistic to evaluate 6-year-old immersion students' speaking and listening skills in a school in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the Student Oral…

Problems in teaching English pronunciation to large groups of university students in Japan are discussed, and some solutions are offered. Pronunciation instruction requires close individual interaction between teacher and student, difficult if not impossible to achieve in a typical Japanese university classroom. However, it is possible to get…

This study shows the relationship between English language proficiency and achievement. A consistent pattern is demonstrated that the English proficiency level of English as a second language (ESL) students can predict student performance on state measures --the high stakes Texas Educational Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS). TAAS is a…

This book presents practical solutions for teaching foreign language learners self instruction, ranging from needs analysis to resourcing, strategy training and monitoring tools. Special emphasis is placed on different ways in which learners can be supported by learning how to analyze their own needs and set their own goals, how to choose the most…

This study presents a quantitative analysis of cohesion of the academic writing of Chinese English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) graduate students by applying Halliday and Hansen's (1976) model. Six Chinese graduate students from a Midwestern university were selected for the study, representing two proficiency levels in written English--advanced and…

This paper reviews several articles with language-based teacher empowerment themes, discussing empowerment in relation to secondary school language teaching (particularly less commonly taught language teaching) and teacher development. The paper extrapolates from the ideas proposed that second language teachers can be empowered, or at least set on…

This case study focuses on a team of middle school teachers in a two-way immersion bilingual education program. The report explores the following questions: How does the organizational structure of the middle school under study promote or impede professional networks among the teachers? What type of teaching-learning practices do these forces…