The present study investigates the effects of the Kagan cooperative learning (CL) model on the English oral communication ability of Bhutanese students. A quasi-experimental design was employed using two classes: the control group (n=22) and experimental group (n=23). The participants of this study were forty-five students of Tsheyang Higher…

This article highlights the potential of teacher read-alouds of informational texts for building academic vocabulary. These represent the general, high-utility words with Greek and Latin roots and the discipline-specific words associated with increased academic rigor of curriculum in the upper elementary grades. The author provides the theoretical…

Recent studies have demonstrated how teachers can draw on students' multilingual resources in teaching English writing, even in monolingually oriented policy settings. However, limited research has been conducted outside of countries where English is the majority language or in classes where few students share a language background. This article…

Given concerns about the reading achievement of Dual Language Learners (DLLs) in comparison to English Monolinguals (EMs), this study examined individual difference variables contributing to English reading comprehension growth in Spanish-speaking DLLs and their EM counterparts in Grades 1-4. The participants, who included 578 DLLs and 412 EMs,…

In language courses, oral skills are frequently a source of anxiety for students. Moreover, in some occasions, students are unfamiliar with the evaluation criteria used to assess their performances, increasing their level of stress when facing the oral exam. This article describes a series of activities based on the introduction of several…

Scholars recognize that K-12 teachers' social interactions, particularly within teaching focused relationships, are important to professional development. This is true whether discussions take place in formal or informal settings. Few studies, however, seek to link the teaching-focused relationships of "college faculty" directly to their…

A number of language acquisition patterns have been identified in the signing of a newly designated population of bimodal bilingual individuals--"heritage signers." This article examines subject-referent tracking forms in the ASL (American Sign Language) narratives of six elementary-school-aged, native-signing, bimodal bilinguals made at…

This qualitative study framed within socio-cultural theory explored a teacher's oral mediation in her classroom interactions with English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. It investigated the teacher's mediation time on the basis of the classification of proactive, reactive, and ongoing mediation, her mediation types were also analyzed based…

This paper examines the usage frequency of phonetically reduced modals (i.e. "gonna," "wanna," "gotta") in Present-day English. It is assumed that in distinct sociolinguistic and discourse contexts, the use of reduced modals is dynamic. To collect the data, there are five corpora used in this study, "Corpus of…

Communication apprehension has been identified as a major factor which inhibits an individual's willingness to communicate and his/her ability to develop effective communication skills. While many prior studies have investigated oral communication apprehension among undergraduate students, there has been little research exploring this phenomenon…

The article presents a system-wide change initiated in the faculty of education at a major teachers' college aimed at developing students' reading, and written and oral communication proficiencies, while focusing on clarity and coherence, and the use of rich, correct and precise language for purposes of studying, teaching and research. The…

Previous research has shown that children demonstrate similar sentence processing reflexes to those observed in adults, but they have difficulties revising an erroneous initial interpretation when they process garden-path sentences, passives, and "wh"-questions. We used the visual-world paradigm to examine children's use of syntactic and…

This article discusses how children in New Zealand make meaning in their spontaneous pretend play from kindergarten (four years old) through to their first year of primary school (five years old). The findings discussed here are taken from a wider project investigating children's storytelling where 12 child participants were video recorded during…

With regard to parents making communication approach decisions for their children with hearing loss, Crowe et al. (2014) suggested that key themes were: feasibility; sources of information; child characteristics; and, future opportunities. For children using cochlear implants (CI/s), the present study aimed to understand parental preferences…

This study aimed to investigate the characteristics of preschoolers' home and classroom literacy environments and the relationships between receptive and expressive vocabulary, phonological awareness, and concepts about print (CAP) development. The participants were 168 parents and their children from five private preschools in a large suburban…