Australian research on immigrant languages has paid little attention to interactional approaches to language alternation as identity construction, and sites other than the family and the mainstream school. We argue for the need of studies that take into account a wider range of sites, in particular "community" sites, and adopt…

This article provides introductory, step-by-step explanations of how to make a specialized corpus and an annotated frequency-based vocabulary list. One of my objectives is to help teachers, instructors, program administrators, and graduate students with little experience in this field be able to do so using free resources. Instructions are first…

In this article, we report findings from a yearlong design research project that worked to leverage the language brokering skills of Latina/Latino middle school youth in an urban school setting. We began the project by asking seventh-grade students to talk about the many languages they speak in their daily lives. Throughout the project, their…

In literature on bilingual teaching, different perspectives exist for and against the use of first language (L1) in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms. There is a continuing matter of debate on whether L1 contributes to or precludes the learning of a second language (L2). Numerous studies have been conducted on this topic, but no clear…

The aim of this study was to explore within-group patterns of variability in the home literacy environments (HLEs) of low-income Latino families using latent profile analysis. Participants were (N = 193) families of Latino preschoolers enrolled in a larger study. In the fall of 2012, mothers filled out a family literacy practices inventory, a…

The purpose of this study is to evaluate linguistic and cultural issues around the status of English as a lingua franca and intercultural understanding as presented in one set of Taiwan's (English as a Foreign Language (EFL) high school textbooks. The methodology centres on the analysis of textbook content as categorized in three central themes:…

This article reports on an ethnographic study carried out in three interrelated sites: two contrasting secondary schools and a Youth-Club (the principal focus of this article), in an area of southwest Wales. This article highlights the incongruence between the language at home and the language of the school and posits that the relationship between…

Little is known about the quality and characteristics of the language used by childcare staff when interacting with infants in non-parental group care settings. This qualitative study analysed the manner in which staff used language when interacting with ten children aged between 9 and 20 months in four different long day care centres in Sydney,…

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between Latino students' learning styles and their language spoken at home. Results of the study indicated that students who spoke Spanish at home had higher means in the Active Experimentation modality of learning (M = 31.38, SD = 5.70) than students who spoke English (M = 28.08,…

Although standard language ideologies have been well researched and theorized, the practices that lead to the reproduction and enactment of these ideologies deserve attention. Specifically, there remains a need to study language that both reveals reliance on standard language ideologies and perpetuates these ideologies within the field of writing…

As a new century begins for "The Modern Language Journal," we argue that highly effective pedagogy requires viewing language and language learning as both cognitive and social phenomena, and that teachers who seek to truly understand the nature of their responsibilities do not have the luxury of choosing one perspective over the other.…

Native languages are acquired in emotionally rich contexts, whereas foreign languages are typically acquired in emotionally neutral academic environments. As a consequence of this difference, it has been suggested that bilinguals' emotional reactivity in foreign-language contexts is reduced as compared with native language contexts. In the current…

In bilinguals and second language learners, the native (L1) and nonnative (L2) languages coexist and interact. The L1 influences L2 production via forward transfer, as is seen with foreign accents. However, language transfer is bidirectional: even brief experience with an L2 can affect L1 production, via backward transfer. Here, we review the…

Supplementing the foreign language curriculum with the incorporation of art museum visits has benefits for students, faculty, the campus art gallery, and the institution. Such a collaborative program serves to expand the classroom and complement instruction by providing learners with a new space to engage in authentic practice in the target…

From a purely educationist perspective, gaining a deeper understanding of several aspects related to the prevalence of autism/ASD in a given population is of great value in planning and improving educational and psychological intervention for treatment, training, and teaching of children with this disorder. In this article, I present and discuss…