Examines the relationship between phonetic possibility and phonological permissibility of segment types. Specific focus is on whether there are any phonetically impossible segments phonologically permissible, and whether there are any phonetically possible segments phonologically impermissable. Examines the case of nasality spreading in Sudanese…

Four kinds of reputed evidence for semilingualism or limited bilingualism are rejected as spurious or irrelevant. An alternative explanation of school failure among language minority children focuses on the lack of first-language support and the absence of comprehensible instruction in content-area knowledge. Implications for bilingual education…

A grammaticality judgment test based on five structures of English grammar was administered in oral and written form. Two groups were formed by separating participants who began learning English at younger and older than 15 years of age. Performance patterns were different for the two groups, the linguistic structure tested affected participants'…

Explores the contribution of cognitive-academic language proficiency to second language acquisition in instructional contexts, using Cummins' concepts of bilingual education. Discusses Albania's educational practices and reviews a joint project by Austrian and Albanian universities that shows how cognitive academic proficiency, along with…

Research-based professional development is essential for districts and teachers across the nation that face the challenge of providing a quality education for increasingly diverse student populations. In this study, the researchers surveyed 729 teachers in one midwestern suburban district recently impacted by high numbers of immigrant and refugee…

This study evaluated the efficacy of the computer-assisted intervention program known as Fast ForWord Language? in a sample of migrant students in Grades 1 through 6 who were native Spanish speakers. Fast ForWord Language? combines intensive training in multiple receptive English language skills with adaptive acoustic waveform lengthening and…

The purposes of this study were to examine the predictors and achievement consequences of academic self-handicapping and to explore cultural variations in the pursuit and effects of performance goals and perceived classroom performance goal structures. Data were collected in 2 consecutive academic years from a diverse sample of high school…

Learning outcomes in higher education are of considerable interest to students, teaching staff, researchers, tertiary education institutions and funding authorities. To improve the quality of learning outcomes may require a better understanding of what happens in the learning process from the perspective of the learner. This study makes use of a…

NCLB is leaving English language learners behind because it defies logic and common sense, is internally self-contradictory, and sets AYP expectations that the subgroup cannot possibly attain. Although the U.S. Department of Education allows states to use a variety of strategies to avoid having a Limited English Proficiency (LEP) subgroup, few…

Hadi-Tabassum believes having a separate life context for each language she learned in childhood enabled her to switch easily among five different tongues. She states that the success of dual immersion bilingual programs is largely dependent on whether they immerse students in each of the involved languages separately and help students have a…

Many researchers have found that learners go through stages in acquiring the L2 tense system: from relying on pragmatic devices to using more lexical devices, and then to using more grammatical morphology. Chinese is a language that has no tense (a [-tense] language) and relies on pragmatic and lexical devices to indicate temporal locations. The…

Research findings from several academic domains have demonstrated that students' judgments of their own academic capabilities, or self-efficacy beliefs, influence their academic behaviors and performances. Absent from this body of research are studies assessing self-efficacy beliefs and their relation to foreign language proficiency. Informed by…

This study focuses on how valid information about learner perception of strategy use during communicative tasks can be gathered systematically from English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. First, the study attempted to develop a questionnaire for statistical analysis, named the Oral Communication Strategy Inventory (OCSI). The research…

Two studies explore the relationship between foreign language teachers' perceptions of their students' academic skills and affective characteristics and their native language skills, foreign language aptitude, and oral and written foreign language proficiency. In Study I (replication), students who scored significantly lower on native language and…

This study investigated the discourse of class discussion in the advanced undergraduate Spanish literature course. Motivating this study was the need for research to determine how discussion in advanced undergraduate literature courses provides discourse opportunities to students to develop advanced language functions, as defined in the ACTFL…