The predictive validity and accuracy of an oral reading fluency (ORF) measure for a statewide assessment in English language arts was examined for second-grade native English speakers (NESs) and English learners (ELs) with varying levels of English proficiency. In addition to comparing ELs with native English speakers, the impact of English…

The mastery of speaking skills in English has become a major requisite in engineering industry. Engineers are expected to possess speaking skills for executing their routine activities and career prospects. The article focuses on the experimental study conducted to improve English spoken proficiency of Indian engineering students using task-based…

Much research has investigated the role of planning time in second language writing; however, the results show that there are inconsistent findings about the effects of planning time conditions on the complexity of the EFL learners' textual output. The current study attempted to consider the differential effects of planning time conditions in…

This study examines the use of e-portfolios for ESL (English as a second language) learners. The data were collected by reviewing 11 empirical studies from 2010-2012 in order to synthesize meaningful information about e-portfolios for ESL/EFL (English as a foreign language) acquisition. The studies were coded into two main categories: learning…

This article reports a study that sought to determine whether non-native sentence comprehension can show sensitivity to two different types of Spanish case marking. Sensitivity to case violations was generally more robust with indirect objects in ditransitive constructions than with differential object marking of animate direct objects, even among…

We present an intelligent tutoring system that lets students of Chinese learn words and grammatical constructions. It relies on a Bayesian, linguistically motivated cognitive model that represents the learner's knowledge. This model is dynamically updated given observations about the learner's behaviour in the exercises, and employed at runtime to…

In the era of quality assurance (QA), close scrutiny of assessment practices has been intensified worldwide across the board. However, in the Australian context, trends in QA efforts have not reached the field of modern/foreign languages. This has largely resulted in leaving the establishment of language proficiency benchmarking up to individual…

The purpose of the present cross-age study with South Korean students was to investigate the relationship of age and years of English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) exposure with English-reading ability. The main research question was, "Do individuals' age and number of years of English exposure interact in relation to English-reading…

This paper examines the French achievement results of three groups of students: Canadian-born English/French bilingual, Canadian-born multilingual and immigrant multilingual Grade 6 French immersion students, by investigating how the variables of integrative and instrumental motivations, attitudes to the learning situation, French language…

Many empirical investigations have demonstrated that explicit Focus on Form (FOF) methods are more effective than implicit Focus on Meaning (FOM) methods (Norris & Ortega, 2000), because in FOF instruction learners' attention is drawn to linguistic form while FOM instruction requires learners' attention to communicate (Ellis, 2001). However,…

Purpose: To examine the degree of convergence in word association responses produced by bilingual children with primary language impairment (PLI) in relation to bilingual age peers. Method: Thirty-seven Spanish-English bilingual children with PLI, 37 typically developing (TD) controls, and a normative sample of 112 children produced associations…

Research on heritage language (HL) development and education has characterized the unique linguistic, sociocultural, and affective profiles of heritage-language (HL) students, yet foreign-language (FL) education has only begun to understand HL students in relation to non-heritage students (Carreira & Kagan, 2011; Felix, 2008). To deepen our…

Vocabulary plays an important part in second language learning and there are many existing techniques to facilitate word acquisition. One of these methods is code-switching, or mixing the vocabulary of two languages in one sentence. In this paper the authors propose an experimental system for computer-assisted English vocabulary learning in…

In recent years, gloss presentation format or the location where a gloss appears with respect to its related target word has received renewed attention. Research suggested that different gloss presentation formats could have differential effects on reading comprehension and/or vocabulary learning. This study hypothesized that the effectiveness of…

There is scarce research that examines the leadership experiences of international students on campus. Leadership capacity and efficacy are important indicators of success in higher education and are linked to important academic, career, and life benefits, such as career and leadership aspirations, work performance, the ability to cope and…