Higher education Spanish programs in the United States are diverse and complex, especially when it comes to student linguistic background. However, most studies on language proficiency were designed for traditional learners (L2s). In this study, we examine oral proficiency development of 125 Spanish majors in light of four linguistic profiles:…

This paper reports on a study aimed to investigate students' development in English proficiency over a four-year partially English-taught programme that did not integrate any explicit language learning goals. Additionally, the study investigated their perceptions concerning language gains and experiences in the programme. Both quantitative and…

This cohort-sequential study explored the working memory (WM) structures that underlie growth in mathematical word problem solving (WPS) performance in elementary school emergent bilingual children whose first language (L1) is Spanish. To this end, children (N = 429) in Grades 1, 2, and 3 in southwest U.S. school districts at Wave 1 were…

The problem is that translations of language in standardized mathematics tests are not provided, which reduces the achievement scores of native-Spanish-speaking English language learners (ELLs) in Grades 4 and 8. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore teachers' perceptions of language translation for the National Assessment of…

This exploratory study evaluated the impact of a Spanish second language (L2) domestic immersion (DI) program that was developed expediently at a large university in the United States in response to widespread study abroad (SA) program closures due to COVID-19. Spanish language learners (n = 14) participated in an intensive, six-week summer…

While many elementary-level children in the United States still do not have access to a second/additional language (L2), an increasing number are educated via Foreign Language Exposure (FLEX) tracks. Our two-semester study examines elementary-level L2 learners' engagement, emerging L2 Spanish vocabulary use, and awareness of the arbitrary nature…

The objective of this study was to employ a new tool for assessing pragmatic "proficiency" (over "performance") in L2 students and to determine if pragmatic lessons on compliment sequences had a positive impact on L2 Spanish students' intercultural competence. To this end, students at a Midwestern college engaged in live video…

Children who speak one language at home and a different language at school may be at higher risk of falling behind in their academic achievement when schooling is disrupted. The present study examined the effects of COVID-19-related school disruptions on English language and literacy development among monolingual and bilingual children in the US.…

This study examined the longitudinal prediction of decoding, oral reading fluency (ORF), and bilingual language proficiency (BLP) on student reading comprehension (RC) outcomes in Spanish and in English. Participants were first-grade Latinx students attending bilingual programs. Findings indicated that BLP initial status and gains were significant…

The objective of this study was to employ a new tool for assessing pragmatic "proficiency" (over "performance") in L2 students and to determine if pragmatic lessons on compliment sequences had a positive impact on L2 Spanish students' intercultural competence. To this end, students at a Midwestern college engaged in live video…

Georgia's Pre-K Longitudinal Study followed a statewide sample of 1,169 children who attended Georgia's Pre-K Program in 2013-14 through their 4th grade year in 2018-19. The study was conducted by researchers at the Frank Porter Graham (FPG) Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The following summary…

Language interaction has been shown to positively impact second language development (Long, 1996). However, whereas research that examined interactionist approaches to second language acquisition (Gass & Mackey, 2006) has meticulously studied how different factors in the interaction (interactional context, type of task, etc) may affect L2…

The 3D virtual worlds (3DVWs) were widely used for language learning in the past two decades. Although numerous research studies acknowledged the affordance, a full-scale investigation that discussed how they can be applied to language learning with substantial evidence of effect sizes were not presented. Thus, this analysis aimed to synthesize…

The present study examined the apologies of 18 study abroad (SA) students during a short-term SA experience in Madrid, Spain. Apologies were assessed with a discourse completion task (DCT) consisting of five vignettes that varied across three variables: relative social status of the interlocutor, relative social distance, and seriousness of the…

This article reports on part of a mixed-methods study framed by sociocultural theory and aimed at assessing the impact of an intervention to promote metalinguistic awareness in language study abroad sojourners. Participants utilized a social media platform as a space to develop personalized e-portfolios for the purpose of in-depth metalinguistic…