This paper explores how "English learners (ELs)" or who we prefer to call "multilingual learners" are labeled and positioned in policy documents and leading education research documents respectively. Attending to the urgent call for serving the growing number of linguistically and culturally diverse learners, this study delves…

Schools are required by the U.S. Constitution, federal and state legislation, and court rulings to ensure equity and excellent education for emergent bilingual students. This literature reviews those policies, related funding and the history of poor quality of instruction provided to these learners. It also describes the research on bilingual…

Language education policy has been a controversial and ongoing issue throughout the U.S., particularly in the state of Texas. This paper reports on a frame analysis of the five bills that amended the Texas Education Code to implement or expand bilingual education and English as a second language programs. Analysis focused on problems and solutions…

Adult literacy is a long-lasting issue in modern US and adult literacy education often falls off the radar of the support system for education. This study examined and synthesized extensive literature relevant to adult literacy education with a focus on minorities in the US. It identified progresses and challenges in three major issues in adult…

This literature review on teachers' beliefs about English language learners (ELLs) in mainstream classrooms is organized into three sections: (a) inservice teachers' existing beliefs, (b) predictors of inservice teachers' beliefs, and (c) the connection between inservice teachers' beliefs and practices. This body of literature points to a clear…

A challenge of today's teacher preparation programmes is to educate teachers about families formed through international adoption and of the challenges they face, in order to meet their educational needs. This population has a unique developmental history affected by pre- and post-adoption conditions which stand to impact on learning experiences…

English language learners (ELLs) are the most rapidly growing student population in U.S. elementary and secondary schools, and this growth rate will continue throughout the next few decades. Indirect evidence has suggested that the youth population that grows the fastest has the highest risk of dropping out of school. This article reviews the…

All students, including students with disabilities, participate in state accountability systems. Most students with disabilities participate in the regular assessment, with or without accommodations. Students with more significant cognitive disabilities participate in the alternate assessment based on alternate achievement standards (AA-AAS). A…

Using interviews with district and school personnel and documents from state and district web sites in three districts in New York State, the study examines practices for identifying learning disabilities among students who are English language learners and the challenges that arise. Specifically, two research questions guided the project: (1)…

In this study a representative sample of 880 elementary and secondary teachers currently teaching in 33 schools across the state of Arizona were asked about their perceptions of how their ELL students were faring under current instructional policies for ELL students. Teachers were surveyed during the Spring of 2010. Overall findings show that most…

This article summarizes research on how students who are bilingual or learning English use two languages and examines how this research is relevant to mathematics classrooms. It is easy to notice that bilingual students sometimes use two languages. It is more difficult to know whether this practice might be significant to learning mathematics.…

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act has made a great impact on states' policies in assessing English language learner (ELL) students. The legislation requires states to develop or adopt sound assessments in order to validly measure the ELL students' English language proficiency (ELP), as well as content knowledge and skills. Although states have…

(Purpose) The purpose of this study was to investigate features of Japanese students' contact with the target language (English) outside the classroom in a study abroad context. (Methodology) The participants in this study were 29 Japanese students taking general English courses, for 12 weeks, at two private English language schools in New…

Reviews the conditions of schooling for English learners in California, the state with the largest population of such students, representing about 40% of U.S. English learners. Identifies seven areas in which students receive an education demonstrably inferior to that of English speakers. (SLD)

This report examines how the development of literacy in the native language plays a role in the acquisition of second language literacy, and how educators may determine when a student is ready to transition into English-only literacy programs by assessing the transfer of skills. In this report, transitional programs refer to instructional programs…