Response to intervention (RTI) has received considerable attention from both researchers and practitioners as a schoolwide model for service delivery. However, research is limited on RTI applications in middle and high schools. The purpose of this article is to describe the outcomes of an experimental examination of a secondary (Tier 2) literacy…

In this study, we explore native and non-native syntactic processing, paying special attention to the language distance factor. To this end, we compared how native speakers of Basque and highly proficient non-native speakers of Basque who are native speakers of Spanish process certain core aspects of Basque syntax. Our results suggest that…

Children with language difficulties often omit verbs and grammatical elements and fail to complete sentences. Bryan (1997) described "colourful semantics", a therapy she used to treat a 5-year-old boy. The therapy uses colour coding to highlight the predicate argument structure of sentences. This study further tested the therapy's…

This paper seeks to analyse discourse patterns of legal opinions in two languages and cultures--namely, Legal Problem Question Answers (LPQs) in the UK academic writing context and Pareri (Ps) in the Italian professional writing context. The qualitative and quantitative analysis of discourse in this paper, based on the tenets of genre analysis,…

Concern exists among both academics and employers regarding the quality of graduates' writing. The complaint, as it is most commonly phrased, is that young graduates can no longer "string a simple sentence together". If true, this is a problem: the quality of students' writing seriously affects their chances in the job market. In this…

The extent to which cognitive development and abilities are dependent on language remains controversial. In this study, the analogical reasoning skills of deaf and hard of hearing children are explored. Two groups of children (deaf and hard of hearing children with either cochlear implants or hearing aids and hearing children) completed tests of…

This descriptive inquiry-based study targeted second language (L2) high school students' (n = 2321) and teachers' (n = 45) beliefs and perceptions about grammar instruction, specifically about grammatical accuracy, corrective feedback, and diverse forms of grammar teaching and learning. Results showed only slight discrepancies between students'…

The purpose of this study is to begin work toward a grammatical assessment measure that could bridge the gap between theoretical work on grammatical development, on the one hand, and tools such as the Michigan Test (which uses multiple-choice questions on vocabulary and grammar) or the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages scale…

This paper reports a study of perceptions and attitudes relating to regional varieties of Polish. The methodology followed folk linguistic approaches to attitudes research. Respondents in two Polish provinces were asked to draw on a map of Poland where they thought the main regional varieties of Polish were spoken, and then to name and…

The need for some form of explicit grammar instruction is recognised in most current approaches to second language teaching. Since the usefulness of explicit instruction is at least to some extent dependent on the difficulty of the rules that are taught, an important question for teachers is whether their judgements of rule difficulty are…

One of the basic findings on situation models and language comprehension is that reading times are affected by the changing event structure in a text. However, many studies have traditionally used multiple, relatively short texts, in which there is little event consistency across the texts. It is unclear to what extent such changes will be…

This study investigates the written feedback the author gave during her first year as a university English as a second language writing instructor. The article investigates the form (questions, commands, comments) and the themes (organization, content, grammar) of feedback, the use of mitigation, and the treatment of grammar errors. It shows how…

As a teacher of Bowling Green State University's English 3810, Grammar and Writing, the author is charged with teaching future language arts teachers how to teach grammar so that it actually helps their students become better writers and communicators. Because such teaching rejects the ineffective but time-honored drill-it-and-kill-it approach, in…

Literature has long been used as a source for reading materials in English as a first language (L1). In recent years, there has been a growing interest in utilizing literature in second language (L2) classrooms. The present article assumes that using literature in L2 reading can have the same effect as in L1. Integrating literature into L2…

Educators continue to have difficulty reforming English curricula in ways that better serve the needs of second language learners. This difficulty is perpetuated, in part, by the inability to predict how such changes will affect morphosyntactic development. To date, ESL research has failed to effectively ascertain how multiple causes influence the…