Children who start formal education in a second language may experience slower vocabulary growth in that language and subsequently experience disadvantages in literacy acquisition. The current study asked whether lexical specificity training can stimulate bilingual children's phonological awareness, which is considered to be a precursor to…

It's one of the ironies of United States culture: We love our history as "a nation of immigrants," but at the same time, we're conflicted about immigration and the changes it brings. In this article, Patricia Gándara examines the research on one area of debate: whether multilingualism should be considered a problem to be fixed, or a…

The current study addresses an aspect of second language (L2) phonological acquisition that has received little attention to date--namely, the acquisition of allophonic variation as a word boundary cue. The role of subphonemic variation in the segmentation of speech by native speakers has been indisputably demonstrated; however, the acquisition of…

In the United States, new common state standards in English language arts and disciplinary literacy require K-12 students to "read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently." Issues of text complexity have spurred debates in the mainstream literacy, educational practice, and policy…

Purpose: This nonrandomized feasibility study was designed to provide a preliminary assessment of the impact of a narrative and vocabulary instruction program provided by a speech-language pathologist (SLP) in a regular classroom setting. Method: Forty-three children attending 2 first-grade classrooms participated in the study. Children in each…

This study investigates subject pronominal expression in second language Chinese and compares learner usage with patterns found in their first language. The results show that (a) overt pronouns are used more for singular, +animate subjects than plural, -animate ones; (b) switch in subject surface form favors overt pronouns; (c) English and Russian…

Native language prosodic structure is known to modulate the processing of non-native suprasegmental information. It has been shown that native speakers of French, a language without lexical stress, have difficulties storing non-native stress contrasts. We investigated whether the ability to store lexical tone (as in Mandarin Chinese) also depends…

The state in Singapore has long insisted that Singaporeans be bilingual in English and an officially assigned ethnic mother tongue. English is to serve as the inter-ethnic lingua franca and facilitate economic competitiveness. The official mother tongue (Mandarin for the Chinese, Malay for the Malays, and Tamil for the Indians) is to serve as a…

Studying how children learn words in a foreign language can shed light on how language learning changes with development. In one experiment, we examined whether three-, four-, and five-year-olds could learn and remember words for familiar and unfamiliar objects in their native English and a foreign language. All age groups could learn and remember…

Reading is an essential activity for learning at university, but lecturers are not always experienced in setting appropriate questions to test understanding of texts. In other words, their assessments may not be "constructively aligned" with the learning outcomes they hope their students to exhibit. In examination conditions, questions…

It is well established that learners transfer sounds from their first to their second language when speaking (see Major, 2008, and references therein). Recent work also indicates that learners may transfer their perception of sounds from the first to the second language. In some cases, errors in production and perception are explicitly corrected…

The author has been working in the literacy field with francophone adults in a minority setting and in a variety of capacities for twenty years, and considers himself a reflective and critical practitioner. He strives to understand the world of adult education and skills development based on his practical experiences and observations from the…

This study investigates teacher attitudes about language and education. The purpose of the study is to help program designers develop professional development efforts that successfully address some of the major identified challenges teachers face when transitioning into Mother Tongue Based Multi-Lingual Education (MTBMLE), including negative…

This dissertation has two complementary objectives. First, the present study provides a contemporary reading of "hispanista" research about Mexican Spanish, including Chicano Spanish. In addition, this dissertation presents an overview and analysis of intonational findings of both Mexican Spanish (from the Los Altos region in Jalisco)…

In order to preserve distinctive cultures, people anxiously figure out writing systems of their languages as recording tools. Mandarin, Taiwanese and Hakka languages are three major and the most popular dialects of Han languages spoken in Chinese society. Their writing systems are all in Han characters. Various and independent phonetic…