This paper adopts a sociocultural perspective on learning (Vygotsky, 1978, 1986) to explore connections between the concept of voicing (Bakhtin 1981, 1986) and a Year four student's second language learning in Australia. Results are drawn from a qualitative study conducted in the Australian outback, through ethnographic research strategies, which…

In this paper, multicultural primary school classes in Norway and the Netherlands are compared in terms of language teaching and learning. Drawing on observations, interviews, and school and policy documents, four dimensions of comparison are discussed. First, we deal with the different ways in which separate language classes for language minority…

This paper is about the learning that happens in the synchronous text chat forum of on online group of English Language learners and tutors. It is a socioculturally oriented case study of an informal virtual community called "Webheads", who meet online in various places on the internet. Although dedicated to English Language learning, much other…

The relationships between phoneme categorisation, phonological processing, and reading performance were examined in Chinese-English speaking children in an English-speaking environment. Second language (L2, i.e., English) phonological processing but not phoneme categorisation was related to L2 reading. First language (L1) oral language skills were…

The author recounts his experience as a Fulbright Scholar in the Department of Special Education at National Changhua University of Education (NCUE) in Changhua, Taiwan, during the fall of 2003. Several aspects of his experience are highlighted, including teaching foreign college students, learning Mandarin, conducting workshops, and consulting…

Cultural discontinuity refers to the lack of cohesion between two or more cultures. Upon entry into school, differences in the functional use of language among culturally and linguistically diverse children have been found to account for the discontinuity they experience. Because children come to school socialized to language in culture-specific…

NCLB is leaving English language learners behind because it defies logic and common sense, is internally self-contradictory, and sets AYP expectations that the subgroup cannot possibly attain. Although the U.S. Department of Education allows states to use a variety of strategies to avoid having a Limited English Proficiency (LEP) subgroup, few…

"What's good for English learning students is good for all students" is a phrase that the author often hears as a teacher educator. However, English language learners have special needs that must be met with pinpointed strategies that target language so they can understand the content being taught. To better incorporate these strategies into the…

Imagine a science activity that excites native English speakers and English learners alike while simultaneously teaching students about tools used in science experiments, increasing science vocabulary, and improving students' skills in recording information. Inventorying science kits or materials from science units with students does just that…

This article presents my views and reflections on working with adult ESL learners at a community-based adult literacy program in the Southwest. In this article, I share my experience working with adult learners learning English as a second language and critically address and discuss issues significant to the learners in their language and…

Hadi-Tabassum believes having a separate life context for each language she learned in childhood enabled her to switch easily among five different tongues. She states that the success of dual immersion bilingual programs is largely dependent on whether they immerse students in each of the involved languages separately and help students have a…

Many researchers have found that learners go through stages in acquiring the L2 tense system: from relying on pragmatic devices to using more lexical devices, and then to using more grammatical morphology. Chinese is a language that has no tense (a [-tense] language) and relies on pragmatic and lexical devices to indicate temporal locations. The…

This article examines the intersection of psychometrics and sociolinguists in the testing of English language learners (ELLs); it discusses language, dialect, and register as sources of measurement error. Research findings show that the dialect of the language in which students are tested (e.g., local or standard English) is as important as…

Research on service-learning programs has detailed the benefits of service-learning for White, English-only, college preparatory students. However, rarely has research focused on the impacts of service-learning on Hispanic, second language learners. In part, this is due to the low participation rate of these students in service-learning programs.…

This study compares 2 measures of reading comprehension: (a) the Woodcock-Johnson Passage Comprehension test, a standard in reading research, and (b) the Diagnostic Assessment of Reading Comprehension (DARC), an innovative measure. Data from 192 Grade 3 Spanish-speaking English language learners (ELLs) were used to fit a series of latent variable…