This dissertation addresses questions about the impact and consequences of current school reforms by examining how mandated packaged reading programs contribute to a commodification of knowledge that is changing conceptualizations of literacy, teaching, and learning. Grounded in cultural-historical theories of literacy and learning, this work…

Gaining proficiency in the host country language is a key element to successful integration of new immigrants. In this article, the author adopts Bourdieu's perspective that accumulation and conversion of forms of capital is only possible through practice in a social field; therefore, the author puts forward the idea that language capital…

The issue of classroom management in the English as a foreign language (EFL) setting has not been addressed adequately despite teachers' views of it as constituting one of their prioritized tasks. Among the aspects of classroom management, in particular, classroom discipline seems to warrant research focus because it contributes to "smooth…

This preliminary study examined the effect of proficiency and study abroad experience on L2 learners' ability to produce routines. Participants were 64 Japanese students in an English-medium university in Japan. They were divided into three groups: Group 1 had lower proficiency with no study abroad experience, Group 2 had higher proficiency but no…

This study looks at the correlation of the English learning which is by using weblog and the adaptation for international students at Universiti Malaysia Perlis. The study was conducted on the first batch of International students. There were 37 students from three countries with the majority from China followed by Indonesia and Sudan. The…

This paper aimed at obtaining a clear understanding of Iranian EFL learners' L2 writing error types. To develop such an understanding, a research question was formulated to see whether there is any significant difference between the participants' language proficiency level and their error types in writing. To this end, a sample version of the…

This study hypothesized that students' loci of control affected their language achievement. 198 (N = 198) EFL students took the Rotter's (1966) locus of control test and were classified as locus-internal (ni = 78), and locus-external (ne = 120). They then took their ordinary courses and at the end of the semester, they were given their exams.…

This dissertation examines the linguistic and extralinguistic factors that influence changes in performance in second language speech perception and speech production experienced by study-abroad returnees in the first nine months after the end of the study-abroad program. English-French bilinguals who had recently returned from a four-month study…

The theme of this volume, complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) as dimensions of second language production, proficiency and development, represents a thriving area of research that addresses two general questions that are at the heart of many studies in second language acquisition and applied linguistics: What makes a second language (L2)…

This paper examines the differences between second-language learners and heritage learners of Russian in terms of their linguistic performance, a finding supported by current research (Andrews, 2001; Kagan & Dillon, 2001/2003), examines the implications of these differences for the creation of testing tools, and offers a sample of a test designed…

Given the rising prominence of nonstandard varieties of English around the world (Jenkins 2007), learners of English as a second language are increasingly called on to communicate with speakers of both native and non-native nonstandard English varieties. In many classrooms around the world, however, learners continue to be exposed only to…

This study investigates the relationship of language proficiency to language production and negotiation of meaning that non-native speakers (NNSs) produced in an online task-based language learning (TBLL) environment. Fourteen NNS-NNS dyads collaboratively completed four communicative tasks, using an online TBLL environment specifically designed…

The aim of this study is to reveal the relation between the Turkish and English language teacher candidates' social demographic characteristics and their perceived computer self-efficacy and attitudes toward computer. The population of the study consists of the teacher candidates in the Turkish and English language departments at the universities…

In two experiments, we tested the role of lexical repetition, cognates, and second language (L2) proficiency in the priming of code-switches, using the structural priming technique. Dutch-English bilinguals repeated a code-switched prime sentence (starting in Dutch and ending in English) and then described a target picture by means of a…

A meta-analysis using Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) was conducted to examine the effects of test accommodations on the test performance of English language learners (ELLs). The results indicated that test accommodations improve ELLs' test performance by about 0.157 standard deviations--a relatively small but statistically significant…