A critical function of schooling is to provide young writers with opportunities to explore real-life, out-of-school experiences through writing. However, literacy instruction in U.S. schools primarily (and sometimes almost exclusively) focuses on the tested skills, with little recognition of children's diverse backgrounds and experiences. The…

In this autoethnographic tale, I tell the story of my own family's experience with race, class, and language privilege. In particular, I focus on my children's experience with elementary schooling in the United States and Hungary. Their intercultural education experience vividly illuminates the socially and culturally constructed nature of race,…

The main goal of this study is to report on the number of words (vocabulary load) native and non-native readers of medical textbooks written in English need to know in order to be able to meet the lexical demands of this type of subject-specific (medical) texts. For estimating the vocabulary load of medical textbooks, a corpus comparison approach…

In recent years, linguists have increasingly turned to the cognitive sciences to broaden their investigation into the roots and development of language. With the advent of cognitive-linguistic, usage-based and complex-adaptive models of language, linguists today are utilizing approaches and insights from cognitive psychology, neuropsychology,…

Based on Selinker's hypothesis of five psycholinguistic processes shaping interlanguage (1972), the paper focuses attention on the Russian L2-learners' overreliance on the L1 as the main factor hindering their development. The research problem is, therefore, the high incidence of L1 transfer in the spoken and written English language output of…

Language must be taught with academic vocabulary that is meaningful and that can be transferred between content and context. This comparative-descriptive research study examines how academic specific instruction increases students' learning of a second language acquisition (i.e., English). The conceptual framework of the study drew research…

This report summarizes findings from a 2016 study that estimated the time it takes English learner students to be reclassified as former English learner students in seven Washington state school districts. The study found that it took students who entered kindergarten as English learner students a median of 3.8 years to develop the English…

This paper focuses on the future of Spanish in the United States and on the tensions and challenges that surround what Fishman (1964) referred to as "intergenerational continuity..It examines the teaching of language itself and the role of such instruction in the development and maintenance of Spanish/English multicompetence (Cook, 1996),…

John Sinclair's Idiom Principle famously posited that most texts are largely composed of multi-word expressions that "constitute single choices" in the mental lexicon. At the time that assertion was made, little actual psycholinguistic evidence existed in support of that holistic, "single choice," view of formulaic language. In…

The way in which the count/mass distinction (CMD) is realized in English can cause serious problems for learners. Cognitive theories of language propose that it is based on the speaker's conceptualization of the world. It has also been argued that this conceptualization is socially constructed, as social semiotic resources influence what a speaker…

Little empirical research has examined the cause of language shift or the factors related to the heritage language (HL) development of language minority groups. This study investigates the factors that facilitate or inhibit the HL development of second-generation Korean Americans, with a focus on adolescent HL learners, who go through phases in…

In today's world, educational contexts are getting increasingly multicultural. Although EFL (English as a Foreign Language) classes in Turkey were mostly composed of Turkish students a decade ago, today students from any part of the world are brought together within the frame of various student exchange programs. In Turkish EFL contexts, students…

This paper seeks to examine the emerging sociolinguistic trends in Nigeria with the view to ascertaining the use of English as a first language among its speakers particular in Calabar, Nigeria. The study adopts Vygotsky's (1978) Social Interactionist Theory. The theory is relevant because it accounts for the intentional and changing linguistic…

The language shift phenomenon in the Bajau Sama Kota Belud in Sabah is definite. The researchers surveyed the phenomenon in Kampung Taun Gusi 1, Kota Belud, Sabah. Based on the age cross-sectional method, 300 participants of 20-29 years (G20s), 30-39 years (G30s), 40-49 years (G40s), and 50-59 years (G50s) respectively were selected by stratified…

Even a quick glance at international data reveals something troubling: There is an increasing economic and educational gap between Africa and the rest of the world. If we look just a bit deeper, we find that economic and educational stagnation may simply be the inevitable outcomes of broad educational failure for millions of rural African…