This study investigated the effects of instruction on the JFL learners' ability to engage in small talk using an instructional approach that uses activity as a target of instruction and pragmatics-focused instruction. Small talk was selected as the target of instruction because of its function to fulfill the intrinsically human needs for…

While English Language Learner (ELL) students in the United States speak more than 150 languages, Spanish is by far the most common home or first language, but is not the top language spoken by ELLs in every state. This fact sheet, based on analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau's 2009 American Community Survey, documents the top languages spoken…

The exilic mode of being, a living on boundary-lines, produces a constant relativization of one's home, one's culture, one's language, and one's self, through the acknowledgement of otherness. It is a homesickness without nostalgia, without the desire to return to the same, to be identical to oneself. The encounter with the other which produces a…

The use of mother tongue in teaching in a multilingual setting affects the way pupils learn. A melting pot and the educational center of the North, Baguio City, Philippines demands teaching strategies that not only adapt to the interplay of the different cultures and languages but give importance to them, too. Specifically, this paper analyzed the…

Complementary schools in the United Kingdom (UK) are community organised schools with the general aim of teaching younger generations their "native" languages and cultures. However, the aims and practices of these schools are predominantly dependent on changes in the social and political contexts both in the host country (in this case…

"Review of Research in Education: Vol. 38, Language Policy, Politics, and Diversity in Education" explores the role of educational language policies in promoting education as a human right. There are an estimated nearly 7,000 living languages in the world. Yet, despite the extent of language diversity, only a small number of the…

The present study aimed to identify the role of both student- and school-level characteristics in primary school students' achievement in the science curriculum. As societies become more culturally and linguistically diverse, many students enter the classroom with a home language that is different from the language of instruction used at school.…

This article reports the results of an action-research project that examines enhancing students' English learning processes through the selective use of their mother tongues with the aim of overcoming their reluctant attitudes toward learning English in the classroom. This study involves forty ninth-graders from an all-girls public school in…

Using eight waves of longitudinal data on a statewide kindergarten cohort of English learners (ELs), I examined ELs' tenure in language-learning programs and their academic performance following reclassification as fluent English proficient. I employed discrete-time survival analysis to estimate the average time to and grade of reclassification…

This paper investigates the perceptions of teachers from one Sabaot dominated primary school in western Kenya regarding the medium of instruction (MoI) policy in different class levels. While their "ideal" MoI policy bears some resemblance to the official policy which advocates mother tongue (MT) as medium in lower primary and English in…

Global migration has had significant impact on the traditional configuration of the classroom role set. The language teacher may be teaching a group of learners with highly mixed interests, abilities, learning histories and exposures to the target language, while the language learner may be confronted with so many different models of the target…

Purpose: This paper aims to progress the dialogue on language rights in the urban classroom. Research has evidenced how language can serve as a powerful tool in mainstream ideologies; more specifically, the preferred and dominant use of Standard Written English in the American classroom has demonstrated how language serves as a gatekeeper for…

It is well documented that ELLs face significant challenges as they develop literacy skills in their second language (NCES, 2007, 2011). This population is diverse and growing rapidly in Massachusetts and across the nation (Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 2013; NCELA, 2011; Orosco, De Schonewise, De Onis, Klingner,…

The purpose of this study was to investigate Turkish EFL learners' ability in composing cohesive texts in their first language and in English as their foreign language, and to examine whether there are similarities between lexical reiteration cohesive devices they employ in composing cohesive texts both in Turkish and in English. The study was…

The development of critical thinking (CT) skills has become a key goal for educators in first and second language contexts. There is evidence that the use of such activities has still not become widespread in a number of ELT situations. One reason for this may be lack of awareness about how levels of thinking can be conceptualized in ELT…