The purpose of this action research paper is to disseminate the results of a 2-month study which focuses on how a student's first language (L1) reading comprehension skills affect the same skills in their second language (L2). The subjects of the study are sixth grade girls, ranging in age from 11 to 13 years old. They attend a private bilingual…

Chinese characters are used in both Chinese and Japanese writing systems. When literate speakers of either language experience problems in finding or understanding words, they often resort to using Chinese characters or "kanji" (i.e., Chinese characters used in Japanese writing) in their talk, a practice known as "brush talk" ("bitan" in Chinese,…

This study aims to report an attempt to design and organise a content-based EAP reading course in political science and economics at a university in Japan, and to shed some light on learners' actual practices and preferences through the use of survey- and interview-based research participated in by 438 students. A principal axis of this project…

In recent years, an increasing number of university students in Canada speak a home language other than English, which can put added pressure on the kinds of linguistic, cultural, and academic support they may require in their tertiary education and in the workplace. Indeed, communication difficulties can surface in the workplace for students…

Companies across the United States provide workplace English classes to non-native-English-speaking employees to increase productivity, retention, and on-the-job safety. Institutions that financially support the programs often require evidence of learning through standardized tests as a prerequisite for continued funding. However, the tests…

Educational researchers and practitioners have paid considerable attention to the use of multiuser virtual environments (MUVEs) in recent years in order to support learning across curricula. Among MUVEs, Second Life (SL) is one of the most popular environments, with over 18 million account-registered users as of May 2008. This paper reports a…

For second-language learners, "academic" language and "social" language are inextricably interwoven. Using examples from several primary classrooms, the author critiques current conceptualizations of second-language learning that distinguish between basic interpersonal communication skills and cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP). She…

This study took a pragmatic approach to examining the effects of task difficulty on L2 oral output. Twenty native English speakers and 59 Japanese students of English at two different proficiency levels produced speech acts of requests and refusals in a role play task. The task had two situation types based on three social variables:…

Extensive evidence exists demonstrating the benefits of repeated readings (RR) interventions at increasing students' fluency on intervention passages. Few studies however have examined the extent to which repeatedly reading one passage improves students' reading fluency on similar passages. Using an alternating treatment design, we examined the…

This paper examines a specific group of English users in Germany: students studying English at the Freie Universitat Berlin. The first section outlines the various domains in which these students encounter English in their daily lives, both within and outside university, as they make and maintain intercultural connections. This analysis suggests…

This study analyzes the use of role-play as an elicitation device for the evaluation of a nonnative speaker's oral language. In this analysis of role-play as a methodology to generate data for assessment purposes, the study examines the role that interlocutors play in two types of interactions. It raises questions about the validity and…

This study investigated the washback of the General English Proficiency Test on English learning in Taiwan. The research sites were the applied foreign language departments of a university of technology and an institute of technology. The latter required day-division students to pass the first stage of the test's intermediate level or the…

A growing population of English Language Learners (ELLs) is U.S.-born, a phenomenon that raises new questions for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). This paper proposes the need for an improved understanding of how the research literature on heritage language speakers can inform ESL education. (Contains 1 figure and 5 notes.)

In order to motivate university students to improve their English proficiency, the Hong Kong government decided to adopt a common exit English language test for all graduating students. In the process of selecting a suitable measure for this purpose, an empirical study with a sample of over 240 students was conducted to compare two English…

Under Title III of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 (NCLB, 2001b) every state needs to show linkage between state content standards and state English language development standards as input to the development of state English proficiency tests. This article argues that Title III presents a unique opportunity to explore how different…