This case study compares the discourse behaviors of 2 Chinese teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL), one rated high and one rated low by their respective students. The teachers were each audio-recorded for a total of 100 minutes during the 'text session' of an Intensive Reading course. Drawing on Yang's (2010) model of EFL classroom…

The concept of text-oriented vocabulary exercises is based on Kühn's (2000) three-step model of vocabulary teaching--receptive, reflective and productive vocabulary exercises--which focuses on working with texts. Since the production is in principle more exhausting than the reception--as can be seen from the Levels of Processing Effect--one can…

Taking a contextual approach to research on language learner beliefs, this longitudinal study of 49 Swiss university students learning Danish as a foreign language investigates how and why the participants change their beliefs over time. At the beginning of the three-semester language course, the participants believe that form-focussed approaches…

Case studies in lexical uptake suggest that some well reported language learning strategies, such as extensive reading and listening to songs, can be quantified accurately in terms of time spent on task and the nature of the vocabulary input they provide. These studies also show that these strategies can link very convincingly to growth in…

Descriptive mixed-methods were employed to investigate the experiences and perceptions of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Thai students in higher education in integrating Augmented Reality technology (AR) in their reading classroom. Participants were queried on their habitual use of computers and the Internet, their perceptions of the…

Vocabulary.com is an online adaptive game that teaches students words by systematic exposure to a variety of question types and activities and by understanding all the word meanings and nuances as they are learned. Vocabulary.com teaches 14,000 words using over 208,000 questions. It has been implemented with the Houston Independent School…

The present study investigated the effects of lexical age of acquisition (AoA), phonological complexity, age and expressive vocabulary on spoken word variability and accuracy in typically developing infants, aged 1;9-3;1. It was hypothesized that later-acquired words and those with more complex speech sounds would be produced more variably and…

With the increase in linguistic and cultural diversity in South Korea, the landscape of English education in Korean classrooms has been changing. This has led to an increased need to explore the language and literacy practices of the emergent multilingual youth in Korea where one (official) language (Korean) has been predominantly used as the…

The educational potentials of using student response systems (SRSs) as emerging mobile technologies in higher education classrooms are increasing. The need to understand and integrate these technologies into English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts has become evident. This mixed-methods study aimed at investigating the effects of an…

The research studied the effectiveness of the integration of Facebook as a flexible ubiquitous learning space into the educational process for speaking skills development of undergraduate students learning English as a second language. For this purpose teaching was organised via a specially created and moderated Facebook group where various media…

This study determined the effectiveness of an experimental emergent literacy intervention, targeting teenage mothers attending an educational facility. Using a pretest/posttest research design, 27 participants completed a 7­-week intervention based in the classroom, targeting a range of emergent literacy skills that they could utilize when reading…

Typically-developing (TD) children frequently refer to objects uniquely in gesture. Parents translate these gestures into words, facilitating children's acquisition of these words (Goldin-Meadow et al. in "Dev Sci" 10(6):778-785, 2007). We ask whether this pattern holds for children with autism (AU) and with Down syndrome (DS) who show…

Diversity of key consonants used in communication (DKCC) is a value-added predictor of expressive language growth in initially preverbal children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Studying the predictors of DKCC growth in young children with ASD might inform treatment of this under-studied aspect of prelinguistic development. Eighty-seven…

The goal of this study was to examine the extent to which the content and recommendations in recently published early language and literacy methods textbooks may support early childhood teachers in learning to provide vocabulary instruction for young children. We completed a content analysis of 9 textbooks with coding at the sentence level.…

Dynamic Assessment (DA) has received a considerable amount of attention in the educational sciences and beyond. DA combines instruction or feedback with assessment or testing within a single activity. DA has great potential for classroom practices, but has not been implemented in many classrooms yet. In this article, we argue that teacher…