This article examines the responses of European American monolingual English-speaking preservice undergraduate education majors to critical issues related to the education of language minority students in P-12 schools. Data analysis of autobiographies, journals, portfolios, thematic units, position papers, and case studies indicated a correlation…

With President George W. Bush's unprecedented call in January 2006 to expand the foreign language capacity of the United States, it has become clear that languages other than English (LOE) are of great interest to public policy in the United States. Yet the language capacity of the United States remains poorly documented. The 2000 General Social…

This study is a modest attempt to use three Korean primary school children and their English diaries as go-betweens to mediate in an apparent dispute between the founding fathers of socio-cultural theory about the nature of language and language awareness. According to Bruner, Vygotsky holds that mediation by others and self-mediation of written…

This article reports on the life history narratives of nine female EFL teachers working in higher education in Japan. An interpretive qualitative analysis of the stories suggested that gender cannot be viewed as a free-floating attribute of individual subjectivities but rather must be seen as one of many components in an ever-evolving network of…

This paper aims at increasing the cultural impact which overseas programs can have on their participants. Too often such programs rely on cultural learning through haphazard and chance experiences. In its stead, a carefully organized program of cultural knowledge and experiences is advanced. Centered around a thematic approach to analysis of the…

The administrator in a bilingual, bicultural community must act with caution, forebearance, and great understanding, paying intense heed to his community. The term "bilingualism" refers to facility in the use of two languages, ranging from a minimal knowledge of either language to a high level of proficiency in both. "Biculturalism" is a…

Attempting to discredit the widely held myth that the study of foreign languages serves only the interests of the college-bound student, this study describes a survey on the status of foreign language study in Illinois and proposes a new rationale for the study of foreign languages which would benefit the majority of students in American schools.…

This paper examines the role of selected affective, cognitive and social factors in second language acquisition, in an attempt to define a group of factors associated with success in second language learning within the formal educational system. Also examined is the effect of different teaching programs on an optimal group of factors. (CLK)

While language-learning strategies as promoters of efficiency in second language learning have generated extensive attention, limited work as been done about awareness-raising regarding language-learning strategies. This study explores the relationship between heightened awareness of strategy use on learners' strategy use and on oral production.…

Acquisition of pragmatic competence by second language learners in the target language environment is examined, drawing on a study of learners of English as a Second Language in Dublin (Ireland). The hypothesis presented is that learners who perceive social or cultural distance between themselves and the target language culture will have greater…

This collection of papers provides an overview of previous studies on the acquisition of Spanish as a second or foreign language, theoretical approaches used in these studies, and effects of various pedagogical approaches on the development of Spanish interlanguage systems. The 10 chapters include the following: (1) "Phonology: Staking Out…

Examines the transferability of five Japanese indirect request strategies to corresponding English request contexts. Findings indicate that the Japanese strategies were differentially transferable and the transferability of each first-language request strategy was determined by interaction between the politeness and conventionality encoded in each…

In this article, we draw from research on cognitive development, sociocultural learning, and organizational development to examine the key factors in teachers' professional learning. Our review of this literature suggests that looking at teachers' prior knowledge, the nature of their interactions, the representations they produce and use, and the…

A study investigated a model that takes into account the influence of conceptual, cultural, and linguistic variables in formation of verbal and nonverbal concepts in bilingual children. This triple-interaction model states that concepts are represented in three ways: (1) nonverbally as abstract categories; (2) symbolically by means of…

The basic premise of this paper is that second language learning or teaching is an exercise in contrastive linguistics because learners filter and assimilate the second language through the categories and experiences represented by the first language to create situationally appropriate utterances. By selecting and exchanging information,…