Culturally Responsive Education (CRE) refers to a comprehensive ecosystem of "pedagogy, curriculum, theories, attitudes, practices and instructional materials that center students' culture, identities and contexts throughout education systems" (Peoples, 2019). In the context of these simultaneous and complementary efforts, culturally…

Developing advanced proficiency in a second language benefits both learners and the societies to which they belong. Educators, employers, and learners can define advanced level proficiency in a language as being able to use language for academic and professional purposes beyond daily life. But being able to use the language at work is not the only…

The proficiency dimension of the learning-oriented assessment (LOA) framework addresses the specific linguistic and content knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) possessed by L2 learners -it is the substance, or the "what" of teaching and learning. It raises questions such as: What do learners know? What are they expected to know? What…

This executive summary presents results from a study that began in 2013-2014, and involves a longitudinal design to follow a sample of 1,169 children (139 Spanish-speaking DLLs) who attended 199 randomly-selected Georgia's Pre-K classrooms. These findings focus on results from the second year of the study, which included 1,034 of these children…

This study aims to examine a) whether vocabulary knowledge, captured in the Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT), is related to the performance on the five types of reading comprehension items tested in TOEFL, i.e., Guessing Vocabulary, Main Idea, Inference, Reference, and Stated Detail; and b) whether EFL learners with different levels of vocabulary…

This paper aims at focusing how the lack of pragmatic competence affects student's communication in L2 (Second language) at tertiary level. The city based Indian students learn English which is their second language from 3 years onwards whereas the rural based students learn English only from 6 years onwards. This exposure of the L2 shows the…

Since 1995, the population of English language learners (ELLs) in the United States has increased by an astonishing 57% (Maxwell 2009). Though ELLs come from many different backgrounds, they share the common challenge of learning English while responding to academic content demands. Part I of this two-part article provides key strategies every…

This report continues the work of Krashen and Brown (2007), developing and evaluating a set of hypotheses for the development of academic proficiency. That article defined academic proficiency as having two components: academic language proficiency and knowledge of academic content.

Despite the burgeoning numbers of English language learners (ELLs) in our schools, many science teachers have little training in meeting their specialized needs. By the year 2010, it is estimated that 40% of K-12 classrooms in the United States will contain nonnative English speakers with varying levels of proficiency (Thomas and Collier 2002).…

In this contribution, I investigate the effect of the knowledge of other languages on self-perceived communicative competence and communicative anxiety in the French of 953 users. I tested the hypothesis that knowledge of more languages, specifically other Romance languages, create stronger or clearer affordances (Singleton & Aronin, Innovation in…

In the United Kingdom (UK) there are two ways for applicants to fulfill the requirement to show their knowledge of English language and life in the UK: they can take a computer-based citizenship test or attend an English class which includes citizenship teaching. This article describes the background to the test and the struggle to ensure that…

This article highlights key issues surrounding the assessment and accountability mandates of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) for English language learners (ELLs). The policy requires high-stakes testing of ELLs in English--a language that these students, by definition, have not yet mastered. After offering background on current federal education…

Effectively teaching mathematics to speakers of other languages requires teachers to recognize, validate, honor, and support the math that these students have already learned before entering a U.S. classroom. To do so, they must become aware of procedures, types of math instruction, and students' current performance levels. They should be…

The assessment of learners' metacognitive knowledge level is crucial when developing computer-assisted language learning systems. Currently, many systems assess learners' metacognitive knowledge level with pre-instructional questionnaires or metacognitive interviews. However, learners with limited language proficiency may be at a disadvantage in…

Although testing language has traditionally taken the form of testing knowledge about language, the idea of testing communicative competence is becoming recognized as being of great importance in second language learning. Communicative language tests are intended to be a measure of how the testees are able to use language in real life situations.…