Thousands of international ESL students come to the United States every year to learn English for the purpose of matriculating into an American university. Teaching these diverse students can be a challenge for educators and despite the students' significant investment of time and money, many of them are inadequately prepared for the demands…

The cognitive mechanisms for writing to dictation of Chinese syllables by healthy adults were investigated using large-sample multiple regression analyses. In the experiment, subjects wrote down a corresponding character upon hearing a syllable. We mainly examined the effects of three types of attributes (i.e., lexical, semantic, and phonology to…

As emerging information technologies have driven demand for new library communication channels, there has been increased interest in the use of mobile tools to promote interaction, expand outreach, market programs, and enhance the library experience. Libraries today are at widely different levels of mobile engagement, a gap poised to grow as…

One of the thorniest aspects of teaching languages is developing students' vocabulary, yet it is impossible to be "an accurate and highly communicative language user with a very small vocabulary" (Milton, 2009, p. 3). Nation (2006) indicates that more vocabulary than previously thought is required to function well both at spoken and…

The purpose of the present study was to investigate developmental differences in lexical processing and sensitivity to the positional information of constituent morphemes with reference to Chinese word-reading ability. One hundred mainland Chinese children (50 second graders and 50 third graders) and 22 high school students were tested with a…

In this study we compared the effects of two types of form-focused instruction (FFI) on second language (L2) learning and their potential contributions to the development of different types of L2 knowledge. Both types of instruction were pre-emptive in nature, that is planned and teacher generated. In Integrated FFI attention to form was embedded…

This paper investigates the place of culture in the Tunisian English for the biology curriculum. To this end, the English language materials used were evaluated. The findings suggested that the materials used do not answer students' needs with respect to exponents of communicative functions, appropriate intonation patterns, norms of politeness,…

This study examines, within the domain of science, the characteristics of words that predict word knowledge and word learning. The authors identified a set of word characteristics--length, part of speech, polysemy, frequency, morphological frequency, domain specificity, and concreteness--that, based on earlier research, were prime candidates to…

This study describes the use of literacy--including the written word--in the maintenance and practice of Lukumí, a Diasporic African spiritual tradition. While Lukumí is decidedly orally transmitted, the written word is still a critical part of its contemporary practice. Relying on data collected during participant observation of ceremonies and…

Writing is a change process. In writing, one clarifies his/her thoughts. When one shares his/her writing with others, they take one's ideas and contribute their own. And through this exchange of ideas they are both changed. It's clear that speaking and writing serve different purposes. Here, with the help of some "Exchange" authors, the author…

The pursuit of literacy is a central theme in the history of African Americans in the United States. In the Western tradition, as Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and others have observed, people of African descent have been written out of "culture" because they have been identified with oral traditions. In that setting, literacy signifies both…

Four experiments are reported that investigate processing of mispronounced words for which the phonological form is inconsistent with the graphemic form (words spelled with silent letters). Words produced as mispronunciations that are consistent with their spelling were more confusable with their citation form counterpart than mispronunciations…

Composing with different modes--image, sound, video and the written word--to respond to and analyze literary and informational text helps students develop as readers and digital communicators. This article showcases five multimodal strategies for engaging children in rich literature-based learning using digital tools and Internet resources.

Purpose: To examine how adults with dyslexia versus adults with typical reading form lexical representations during pseudoword learning. Method: Twenty adults with dyslexia and 20 adults with typical reading learned meanings, spellings, and pronunciations of 16 pictured pseudowords, (half with regular and half with irregular grapheme-phoneme…

This paper examines the history of four Chinese vernaculars which have developed written forms, and argues that five of the patterns Hanan identifies in the early development of Bai Hua can also be found in the early development of written Wu, Cantonese, and Minnan. In each of the cases studied, there is a clear pattern of early use of the…