Little research investigates the academic and interpersonal competence of Latino students in classroom settings. As such, the current study seeks to better understand how language proficiency and ethnicity relate to teacher ratings of children's academic and social capabilities. The present study compared European American students with Latino…

This study considered the effects of trait emotional intelligence (trait EI; Petrides & Mavroveli, 2007) and sociobiographical variables (age, gender, education level, number of languages known, age of onset of acquisition, context of acquisition, frequency of use, socialization, network of interlocutors, self-perceived proficiency) on…

This paper reports an evaluation carried out from 1999 to 2003 in 55 schools in the Basque Autonomous Community involving more than 10,000 secondary school students. The variables measured include achievement in Spanish, metacognitive skills, learning strategies and variables related to the students' family environment. The measurements were made…

This case study examined the general question: "What are the best practices for teaching. English language learners how to read?" Furthermore, this study sought to discover specifically: How do students using Houghton Mifflin Reading Program with supplementals and Rigby Reading Program with supplementals compare in terms of academic gains?; What…

The explicit teaching of reading comprehension strategies has been proposed as a means to better prepare secondary school-aged students for today's information-dense, fast-paced, fast-changing global society, and to improve the academic performance of struggling adolescent readers. This proposition of a direct and positive impact of reading…

The quantitative study was a comparison of Limited English Proficient (LEP) students' assessment outcomes when taught by a teacher with specialized training and when taught by teachers with no specialized training. The comparison of 2007-2008 Northern Nevada LEP third grade student scores in the content areas of English language arts and…

Performance assessments have become the norm for evaluating language learners' writing abilities in international examinations of English proficiency. Two aspects of these assessments are usually systematically varied: test takers respond to different prompts, and their responses are read by different raters. This raises the possibility of undue…

This paper argues that young Hispanic (or Latina/o) children (ages 3 to 8 years) should be of particular interest to policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in education. Young Hispanic children constitute an urgent demographic imperative. Young Hispanic children are not only the largest racial/ethnic group in the U.S., but also the youngest…

This qualitative research study investigated four adolescent English Language Learners' (ELLs) perceptions of READ 180. READ 180 is a reading program designed for both struggling readers and English Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) students (Scholastic, 2009a). Although there have been a number of research studies on the benefits of READ 180 for…

This article examines why students participated in British Columbia's first intensive French (IF) program between 2004 and 2008 and what they achieved as a result, with a particular focus on the effect on the French and English language proficiency of English as additional language (EAL) students. Qualitative case studies found that students and…

Federal and state policies have long sought to address the social inequities faced by limited English proficient (LEP) students through the improvement of English language acquisition. English language acquisition policy has focused on access to resources, qualified teachers, and instructional methodologies (e.g. pedagogy) that create a learning…

The purposes of this paper are to explain the development processes of an intensive summer program for English language learners and to discuss course improvement strategies based on the evaluation outcomes. This 60-hr partnership program between local schools and a university was developed to improve the language proficiency of increasing numbers…

This presentation is based on a method for analyzing the verbal flow in text-building behavior. The method is called Perspective Text Analysis (PTA). It locates and makes use of the discontinuities in produced text. Its task is to characterize the mechanism that governs language production and to foster an understanding of the actual processes of…

The Language Proficiency Assessment (LPA) Symposium was held to integrate the insights gained from findings emerging from the research component and the implementation of the teacher training programs of the Assessment of Language Proficiency of Bilingual Persons (ALPBP) project. This final report on the symposium consists of three component…

Opposite views on "deficit" or "difference" in language use could be reconciled by referring to the lower working class performance as manifesting a relative deficiency in the referential function, attributable to differential learning opportunities. The effect of factors responsible for this is discussed. (Author/RM)