The No Child Left Behind Act (2001) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (2004) emphasize accountability to improve student academic achievement. Promoting self-determination has been proposed as a means to achieving this outcome. Elementary teachers in 30 states were surveyed to measure (a) their perceived importance of…

This article reviews research on working memory (WM) and its use in second language (L2) acquisition research. Recent developments in the model and issues surrounding the operationalization of the construct itself are presented, followed by a discussion of various methods of measuring WM. These methods include word and digit span tasks, reading,…

The article focuses on the impact of internationalization on university lecturers' practice. Based on interviews with 36 employees from Danish universities, we discuss what internationalization means for the classroom relationship between university teachers and international students. The article is inspired by an intercultural communication…

After presenting some of the main arguments against certain narrow concepts of second language practice, this article argues that a broader concept of practice, still focused on form or even forms, but with due attention to form-meaning links and with appropriate sequencing of activities to ensure declarative knowledge first, followed by its…

The concept of approach to learning was first identified by Marton and Saljo in 1976. Numerous researchers have conducted studies on students' approaches to learning since 1976. There appears considerable confusion in the literature concerning the terms cognitive styles and learning styles. Therefore, there is a remarkable ambiguity about the…

In this study, four years of formal observations of classroom teaching practice were employed to ascertain the practice fidelity of a site-based school reform in a secondary school setting. Those observations were then used as a criterion variable in an examination of differences in the perspectives of administrators, teachers and teaching peers…

This study explored mathematics teachers' instructional practices in the context of high-stakes testing. Data were obtained from a survey instrument given to a stratified sample of Mississippi and Tennessee teachers who teach the same content tested on their state's high school graduation examination. An analysis showed teachers using a balance of…

We investigated two methods to promote prospective teachers' awareness of learner diversity and application of teaching principles using a problem-based learning environment. In Experiment 1, we examined the effects of presenting a conceptual framework about learners' individual and group differences either before or after instruction on teaching…

Postgraduates' English acquisition is an intriguing but complex process. A lot of factors have contributed to the outcome of a learner's acquisition, among them, motivation and strategy are playing a crucial role. Motivation is the driving force to encourage the learner to learn, while strategy being the techniques or devices for a learner to use…

This study examined the second language (L2) development of adult learners of Spanish at three levels of proficiency during and after a semester of instruction. A fundamental goal was to identify cognitive and psychosocial individual differences (IDs) that can explain between-learner variation over time in order to expand our understanding of the…

Research Findings: Sibling teaching and learning behaviors were investigated in 2 studies of children in early and middle childhood. Study 1 addressed individual differences in teaching/learning and associations with dyadic age, age gap, gender, birth order, and relationship quality in 71 middle-class dyads (firstborns M age = 81.54 months;…

There is mounting evidence that phonological memory (PM), a sub-component of working memory, is closely related to various aspects of second language (L2) learning in a variety of populations, suggesting that PM may be an essential cognitive mechanism underlying successful L2 acquisition. This article provides a brief critical review of the role…

Teachers do not want to have students simply marking time by completing tasks from which there is no new learning for them. Similarly, teachers do not want students struggling with tasks that are demoralisingly difficult. In one primary mathematics classroom, however, a teacher can expect to have a wide range in the levels of understanding of the…

As teachers struggle to meet the needs of a highly diverse student body, technology holds out the promise of a solution. However, first the nature and scope of differences between students has to be identified. This study (n = 1811) takes a comprehensive approach, selecting differences from each stage in the learning process. These were termed…

This study examined rural high school teachers' characteristics and their apparent influences on teachers' motivating strategies. Participants were 46 teachers, across subjects and grade levels, in nine rural public high schools. A multimethod approach was used, with questionnaires, narrative reports, and interviews assessing teachers' individual…