California's Kindergarten Readiness Act of 2010 revised the cutoff date by which children must turn five for kindergarten entry in that year and established transitional kindergarten (TK), defined as the first year of a two-year kindergarten program for all students affected by the birthdate eligibility change. Since it has been implemented across…

Intelligibility of second language (L2) English has become an important goal in English pronunciation teaching. However, intelligibility research primarily focused on L2 English users and L2 production features; only a handful of studies have examined other effects on the intelligibility of L2 English. In line with the three-part model of…

This report examines the population of Alaska Native students who are classified as English learner (EL) students and how EL policies function for these students, focusing on EL identification, classification, service provision, and reclassification as fluent English proficient. Alaska is one of several states where Indigenous students make up a…

This article reports a mixed-method study that examined the washback effect from a locally-produced, theme-based, high-stakes English language proficiency test in tertiary education in a Turkish EAP context. The aim was to explore the extent to which washback on teaching was induced by an integrated theme-based English proficiency test designed to…

Recently, situated willingness to communicate (WTC) has received increasing research attention in addition to traditional quantitative studies of trait-like WTC. This article is an addition to the former but unique in two ways. First, it investigates both trait and state WTC in a classroom context and explores ways to combine the two to reach a…

This study explores preliminary results from a pedagogical intervention designed to improve instruction for all students, particularly emergent bilinguals in the United States (or English language learners). The study is part of a larger efficacy randomized controlled trial (RCT) of the Instructional Conversation (IC) pedagogy for improving the…

This review aims to address the major sources of stress experienced by international students, the role of individual differences, the chronology of their stress levels and wellbeing over time, and gaps in the existing literature. Two electronic databases (PubMed and Psych Info) were searched for English peer-reviewed articles using eight search…

This paper presents the components influencing English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learning demotivation and resilience. Semi-structured interview data from 23 EFL students and nine teachers were thematically analyzed guided by the Grounded Theory approach after systematic reiterative comparative reviewing. The major demotivators were teachers'…

In a 2013-2014 Australia-China Council project, middle school students in Australia and China shared digital stories about their everyday lives and local cultures, and traditional tales with a modern twist. This article reports on research that aimed to explore the successes and challenges associated with this digital story exchange between…

While research on CLIL suggests positive impacts on lexical proficiency and on spoken language, the crucial question of the effect of CLIL on advanced learners, both in terms of subject-specific language (SSL) proficiency and content knowledge, has received less attention. We argue that the ability to negotiate a factual position appropriately is…

The paper reports on a participatory action research study conducted in six rural primary schools in Uganda in 2013 to establish why children taught in the local language had difficulties in reading and writing. Findings through interviews, focus group discussions, reviews of exercise books and lesson observations indicated that though it was…

This dissertation looks at the effects of the flipped classroom model on foreign language learners at the introductory level. Specifically, the project examined students' learning outcomes in reading, writing, speaking, and listening when exposed to the flipped classroom format for one or two semesters of introductory German classes at the college…

This study examines the effectiveness of minimally trained tutors providing a highly structured tutoring intervention for struggling readers. We screened students in Grades K-6 for participation in an after-school tutoring program. We randomly assigned those students not meeting the benchmark on a reading screening measure to either a tutoring…

According to 2016-2017 school enrollment data, 31.6% of K-5 students were English Learners (ELs) in the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD). Of the many languages spoken at home by students, the most popular languages other than English are Spanish (19.14%) and Cantonese (15.88%). To respond to their needs, SFUSD offers programming that…

Antony John Kunnan is a language assessment specialist. His research interests are fairness of tests and testing practice, assessment literacy, research methods and statistics, ethics and standards, and language assessment policy. His most recent publications include a four-volume edited collection of 140 chapters titled "The Companion to…