The purpose of this article is to introduce the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten (ECLS-K) database to school social work practitioners and researchers. This database not only serves as a viable source for evidence-based practice pertaining to the influences of families and schools on the academic achievement of children beginning at…

This paper is intended to investigate the interplay between proficiency and gender in the use of communication strategies. Sixty Iranian university male and female subjects studying English took part in the experiment and performed two tasks: word recognition and picture-story narration. The results indicate that proficiency had a more perceptible…

Since 2000, the General English Proficiency Test, a newly developed test of English, has been phased in by the Language Training and Testing Center in Taiwan. It has become the most universally used test of English in Taiwan, a fact that can be evidenced by its aggregate number of registered test takers. This article first describes the…

Objective: The authors compared the predictive effects of acculturative stressors and meaning of life on life satisfaction between Chinese students in Australia and in Hong Kong. Participants: In 2006, the researchers recruited 606 Chinese students studying abroad at the University of Melbourne in Australia and at 6 universities in Hong Kong.…

This longitudinal mixed-methods study compared the oral fluency of well-educated adult immigrants from Mandarin and Slavic language backgrounds (16 per group) enrolled in introductory English as a second language (ESL) classes. Speech samples were collected over a 2-year period, together with estimates of weekly English use. We also conducted…

This study examines the relationship among five independent variables--integrative motivation, instrumental motivation, the need to fulfill a foreign language requirement, grade point average (GPA), and previous years studying Spanish--as predictors of five dependent variables: scores on a simulated oral proficiency interview (SOPI), final exam…

Background: This study is conducted in Singapore, where learning to read in English is regarded as essential because it is offered as a First Language (L1) subject in the curriculum and is stipulated as the medium of instruction in the education system, and the mother tongues are offered as Second Language (L2) subjects, although the majority…

This article reports on a longitudinal analysis of factors that predict the word reading skills in English and Spanish for a sample of 234 Spanish-speaking students in first grade. The children were assessed at the end of preschool, kindergarten, and first grade. Data include three subtests of the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery and a…

This article integrates findings from earlier research (Roessingh & Kover, 2003; Roessingh, Kover, & Watt, 2005) linking distinct patterns of achievement for diverse age-on-arrival (AOA) cohorts of ESL learners on the grade 12 Alberta English language arts (ELA) examination to their vocabulary and reading comprehension scores on a standardized…

This study and analysis are designed to find a common, practical measurement tool that may be used for intra- and interprogram evaluation of Japanese programs, especially in the higher education context. First, three previous methods of evaluation (the Oral Proficiency Interview, the Nihongo Noryoku Shiken or Japanese Language Proficiency Test,…

Teacher training in gender differences can help prevent schools from failing AYP. Teachers who understand how the learning style of boys differs from the learning style of girls can leverage that knowledge to boost test scores by applying it across all four subgroups, which are defined by race/ethnicity, income, disability, or English-speaking…

English language learners (ELLs) are the fastest growing segment of the K-12 student population in the United States, and they are settling in areas that have never before seen such diversity. This article discusses how rural and suburban districts across the United States are moving to keep pace with their rapidly growing English language learner…

This contrastive study is concerned with relations between rhetoric and ethnicity in second language (L2) writing. It investigates the influence of Chinese rhetoric on expository writing in English by three groups: the majority Chinese Han group, and two ethnic minorities, Tibetan and Mongolian. Relying on a contrastive text analysis of 30…

This study analyses the effects of learning contexts on proficiency development as well as attitudinal and behavioral changes. At a Japanese high school where content-based L2 instruction in global studies is a feature of education, TOEFL scores, international posture, L2 WTC, and frequency of communication in L2 were assessed in the participants'…

The present study investigates the relationships among motivational factors, cultural correlates and second language proficiency. The participants, from both Western and Asian backgrounds, were learning Chinese at university level in the People's Republic of China. 115 students (35 Western students and 80 Asian students) ranging from beginning to…