We used geospatial analysis tools to develop community maps depicting fourth-grade reading proficiency test scores and locations of facilities offering public access to reading materials (i.e., public libraries, elementary schools, and Little Free Libraries). The maps visually highlighted areas with struggling readers and areas without adequate…

This study examined the third-grade outcomes of 11,902 low-income Latino children who experienced public school pre-K or child care via subsidies (center-based care) at age 4 in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Regression and propensity score analyses revealed that children who experienced public school pre-K earned higher scores on standardized…

Mexico and the U.S. are closely associated by commerce, culture and family ties. Despite the geographical proximity and the long-standing socio-political history between the two countries, there is limited understanding of cultural differences and similarities. A unique study abroad programme for U.S. and Mexican students was developed based on…

This study aimed to investigate the beliefs of English as foreign language (EFL) learners about speaking in English and being a good speaker of English through metaphor analysis. A phenomenological approach was adopted and 60 EFL learners completed a questionnaire with demographic questions and two prompts focusing on the characteristics of a good…

A large body of literature has characterized unimodal monolingual and bilingual lexicons and how neighborhood density affects lexical access; however there have been relatively fewer studies that generalize these findings to bimodal (M2) second language (L2) learners of sign languages. The goal of the current study was to investigate parallel…

In this study, the effectiveness of the application of speech-to-text recognition (STR) technology on enhancing learning and concentration in a calm state of mind, hereafter referred to as meditation (An intentional and self-regulated focusing of attention in order to relax and calm the mind), was investigated. This effectiveness was further…

Twenty-three preschool-age children, 3;6 (years; months) to 4;1, were videotaped separately with their mothers and fathers while each mother and father read a different unfamiliar storybook to them. The text from the unfamiliar storybooks was parsed and coded into story grammar elements and all parental extratextual utterances were transcribed and…

While written exercises may serve students adequately on tests, the structures they emphasize can remain elusive or difficult for students to master in conversation. Students tend to interpret their difficulty in applying what they have learned as a lack of language ability, and they can quickly lose confidence when speaking. Producing a target…

This paper provides an overview of the theories on the organization and development of L1 mental lexicon and the representation mode of bilingual mental lexicon. It analyzes the structure and characteristics of Chinese EFL learners and their problems in English vocabulary acquisition. On the basis of this, it suggests that English vocabulary…

A growing number of U.S. business schools now offer an undergraduate degree in international business (IB), for which training in a foreign language is a requirement. However, there appears to be considerable variance in the minimum requirements for foreign language training across U.S. business schools, including the provision of…

This paper looks at how personal struggles associated with the overseas setting caused changes in the intercultural perspective of 30 Anglophone educators working in international schools. Situated within a social constructivist framework, interview methods were utilised to build a collective narrative shared by educators. Findings reveal that…

Many nations now enrol large numbers of tertiary students with English as an additional language, raising concerns over academic literacy standards. As a result, calls for whole-institution approaches to enhance language proficiency have grown. This paper describes the issues faced by one university that attempted such an approach. We first…

This study investigates the psychological effect of a wrong question with wrong items on answering to the next question in a test of structure. Forty students selected through stratified random sampling are given 15 questions of a standardized test namely a TOEFL structure test in which questions number 7 and number 11 are wrong and their answers…

This study examined to what extent English-speaking learners of Arabic demonstrated varied metalinguistic knowledge of a salient feature (head-direction) vs. an unsalient feature (definiteness) in the Arabic construct state. In addition, it examined whether this knowledge was utilized in form-focused task performance. In the target construction,…

As the seamless connection between language and culture is commensurate with related research carried on language and culture; language is greatly affected and structured by cultural values, attitudes and beliefs. The goal of the present study is to investigate and analyse English language teachers' perceptions and opinions about the integration…