Developing proficiency and intercultural competence are goals promoted by the Modern Language Association and widely shared by postsecondary second language programs across the United States. Although the development of proficiency has been studied extensively in this context, comparatively little is known about how intercultural competence…

Despite the important role of strategies in language learning, they have not been afforded much attention in the development of language proficiency scales. This study, situated in a nationwide project of developing China's Standards of English language ability, presents in detail the development of a reading strategic competence scale for Chinese…

Appropriate placement of language learners continues to be challenging for postsecondary world language programs. The Seal of Biliteracy is now available in all of the states for high school students. While the Seal is an admirable program, using it in higher education can be problematic because the proficiency levels needed to attain the Seal…

This study examines the extent to which parental involvement factors predict the likelihood of Hispanic non-native English speakers' (NNESs) postsecondary education (PES) enrollment after controlling for socioeconomic status and linguistic factors. A nationally representative Education Longitudinal Study dataset and a binary multilevel logistic…

Domestic immersion (DI) is an effective context for postsecondary language learning, given that DI's instructor-curated environments promote meaningful second language use while providing abundant support for learners. However, DI is at present understudied within second language acquisition research, especially when compared to its more…

English as a medium of instruction (EMI) represents an internationalization strategy that has been expanding throughout higher educational systems worldwide. While this approach is believed to bolster graduate employment, students with lower levels of English often struggle to learn content in English. This challenge is particularly relevant in…

Driven by the digital revolution in second language (L2) classrooms and broadened views on literacy, digital multimodal composing (DMC) has gained a robust growth of interests in the past decade. To illuminate the empirical landscape of this budding field, this paper provides a substantive and methodological review of 60 empirical L2 studies on…

Glossophobia or fear of public speaking is commonly experienced by tertiary learners during classroom presentations. This study intends to examine the speech anxiety level experienced by engineering learners and the relationship between the learners' English language proficiency and their speech anxiety. The study will also identify the causes of…

The present study aims to examine how listening comprehension processes (top-down and bottom-up) differ by second language proficiency. To investigate such differences, experiments (listening tasks) followed by questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were conducted. Participants included 18 lower intermediate learners, 19 upper intermediate…

Flipped learning has become a popular approach in various educational fields, including second language teaching. In this approach, the conventional educational process is reversed so that learners do their homework and prepare the material before going to class. Class time is then devoted to practice, discussion, and higher-order thinking tasks…

Latinos labeled "English learners" by the school system face social and systemic barriers that limit their access to postsecondary opportunities. Using a multilevel model of intersectionality, this collaborative case study contextualizes influences that impacted the educational trajectories of two Latino students who came to the United…

Background/Context: Students designated as English Learners (ELs) account for 10.4 percent of all students nationwide but have historically been provided unequal access to educational resources (Gándara et al., 2003; National Center for Education Statistics, 2023). Further, education policies are often blind to ELs' strengths and challenges,…

This dissertation consists of three empirical studies that explore the educational experiences and trajectories of English learners (ELs) and students with disabilities. The first study uses longitudinal data from four large California school districts to examine the characteristics of long-term ELs (LTELs) and former ELs--those reclassified as…

Education opens numerous revenues to register economic expansion all around the world with specific reference to developing nations. Advancement of Pakistan in education indicators has been severely insufficient during the previous decades. Decreased financing along with inefficiency in budget expenditure plus weak management system have crippled…

This current research forms part of a broader investigation into the problems Saudi postgraduate students face in English academic writing. The study used the interpretive paradigm to investigate and interpret the perceptions of Saudi postgraduate students and their supervisors in relation to the difficulties they encountered regarding academic…