The developing discourse which moves assessment away from a measurement model towards one of learner empowerment and the development of assessment for lifelong learning sets the context for this article. The aim was to investigate the effect of self-assessment on foreign language learners' oral performance ability. Twenty EFL students of foreign…

This study compares the willingness to communicate (WTC) of Canadian Anglophone and Francophone students to measures of their self-assessed, multiskilled second language proficiency and strategy use before and after a short-term intracountry bilingual exchange experience. The central question is whether a student's WTC exists before an opportunity…

Many colleges and universities in North America employ foreign language housing (FLH) as a means of exposing students to a second language (L2). However, little research examines the effectiveness of these houses on L2 use and gains. The purpose of this study was to examine whether L2 learners living in FLH use the L2 more and whether they make…

This paper examines bilingual children's use of language inside and out of the minority language classroom. A total of 145 children between 8 and 11 years of age, attending 16 bilingual Welsh-English primary schools in North Wales, responded to questionnaires (supplemented by classroom observations) requesting information about their language…

Today, English language learners (ELLs)--students whose primary language is other than English--are the fastest-growing major school population in the United States. Between 2000-01 and 2010-11, the number of these students, whose level of English proficiency is not sufficient to support learning in a regular English language classroom, rose 18…

Study abroad is often viewed as an ideal setting to improve target language proficiency due to opportunities for extensive contact with locals in the target language. However, research on study abroad demonstrates that this local contact and target language use can be quite limited, and that there is considerable variation in the linguistic…

This compliance report provides information regarding American Indian students' public school performance and how performance is measured. This information is shared with legislators, educators, tribes, communities and is disseminated at the semiannual government-to-government meetings. The New Mexico Public Education Department (NMPED) is…

This article report on the development and use of an analytical framework intended to map the language demands encountered by English learners as they engage in science performance assessments. Grounded in functional and interactional views of language and language use, the authors--two science education researchers and a language…

Purpose: This study was conducted to determine if phonological production proficiency in bilingual Spanish-English preschoolers could be predicted by their language environment, language ability, and phonological production proficiency in their other language. Method: Participants were 199 Latino children and their families. Children ranged in age…

Educators of young children, including speech-language pathologists, are often uncertain as to how to effectively work with children from diverse backgrounds because they do not know enough about cultural and linguistic diversity and its impact on language development. The current study helps to address this gap by examining the validity of parent…

This study investigates intergroup homogeneity within high intermediate and advanced L2 writers of English from Czech, Finnish, German, and Spanish first language backgrounds. A variety of linguistic features related to lexical sophistication, syntactic complexity, and cohesion were used to compare texts written by L1 speakers of English to L2…

Research and development of a new type of scoring rubric for the integrated speaking tasks of "TOEFL iBT"® are described. These "analytic rating guides" could be helpful if tasks modeled after those in TOEFL iBT were used for formative assessment, a purpose which is different from TOEFL iBT's primary use for admission…

Language is the most immediate tool of inclusion into a social group and as such is central in creating, understanding and participating in the group. Language policy can serve, establish and organise such groups, and to assure that they are maintained and implemented for posterity. Language policy in education is imperative for a group to build…

There has been a continuous debate over a long period over the issue of using the learner's mother tongue in teaching the second language. We have two schools in this regard--monolingual approach and bilingual approach. Those advocating the monolingual approach have claimed that learning is determined by the quantity of exposure to the target…

While Chinese language learning in Australian schools is characterised by predominantly second language programs for learners who have had no prior exposure to the target language, there is increasing participation by Australian-born children who speak Putonghua (Mandarin) or another dialect at home. Curriculum and assessment frameworks and…