Foreign language telecollaboration pairs learners so that they may improve their language and intercultural skills. A lesser known model, intergenerational telecollaboration, uses senior citizens as native language partners instead of peers. This paper presents the results of an intergenerational videoconferencing project between learners in…

The large number of limited English proficient (LEP) children in U.S. schools and the uncertainty about the impact of bilingual education versus English immersion on their achievement warrant rigorous investigation of the effects of "English immersion laws." We estimated the impact of "Question 2", the Massachusetts English…

When researchers from the Strategic Education Research Partnership (SERP) met with Boston secondary school teachers three years ago, the teachers told them they had a problem. Students struggled to understand their textbook lessons because they continually tripped up on--or glossed over--the academic words they came across. The researchers'…

In the current english-only programs in California, Arizona, and Massachusetts only a small percentage of students are learning English and subject matter content. This violates the success in practice prong of "Castaneda v. Pickard" (1981). Further, these program failures bolster the claim that these programs also violate castaneda's…

This report describes eight exemplary schools serving minority students with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) in Texas, California, Illinois, and Massachusetts. Schools were chosen by nomination. The report is divided into 10 chapters. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the report, and provides background information on how the eight schools…

To make sense of the complex information taught in the upper elementary grades -- and to understand the language that increasingly appears in high-stakes tests--students must be proficient in academic English. English language learners are at a serious disadvantage. Two word problems in mathematics illustrate the difficulties that these students…

In much research, learners' perspectives tend to be considered in light of a program's expectations or U.S. society's definitions of learner needs, rather than considering how learners would define and make sense of their own experiences, hopes, and needs. In contrast, this study considers learners' meanings as the fundamental starting point for…

The authors carefully followed for a year or more the inner experiences of learning and change of 41 ABE/ESOL (Adult Basic Education/English for Speakers of Other Languages) learners from all over the world. They were enrolled in three distinct U.S. programs (a community college, a family literacy site, and a workplace site), each oriented to…

How do ABE/ESOL (Adult Basic Education/English for Speakers of Other Languages) programs shape adult learners, and how do adult learners, in turn, shape their programs? Beyond the acquisition of important skills (such as greater fluency in the English language) what are the bigger internal meanings for adults of participating in ABE/ESOL…