Many of the foreign language teachers and professors I have encountered throughout my EFL teaching career say that speaking is the most difficult skill to teach in a foreign language class. Classes usually focus on teaching points (e.g. grammar or listening related lessons) that can satisfy larger classroom situations. Speaking requires adequate…

This article summarises the linguistic base of initial reading and spelling in English for the benefit of teachers and others engaged in education who need explicit understanding of parts of the linguistic base in order to teach initial literacy accurately. The aspects covered are those most relevant to children entering formal schooling: spoken…

Developing technology has significantly affected the education and training process as it is in all areas of life. In today's society, smart phones, tablets and computers which almost every individual owns have facilitated access to information, and besides classical teaching methods, technology-supported or technology-based education activities…

This study aimed to examine the development of EFL students' vocabulary knowledge adopting a task-based method with 32 Thai students who enrolled in an English for Communication course at a university in northern Thailand. This study emphasized improving the Thai EFL students' English vocabulary knowledge by requiring students to retell six Thai…

Using a meta-analytic approach, we evaluate the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and children's experiences measured with the Language Environment Analysis (LENA) system. Our final analysis included 22 independent samples, representing data from 1583 children. A model controlling for LENA[TM] measures, age and publication type…

Children employ multiple cues to identify the referent of a novel word. Novel words are often embedded in sentences and children have been shown to use syntactic cues to differentiate between types of words (adjective vs. nouns) and between types of nouns (count vs. mass nouns). In this study, we show that children learning Malay (N = 67), a…

Behaviour problems in early childhood have a lasting impact on cognitive development and education attainment in later adolescence and into adulthood. Here we address the relationship conduct and hyperactivity problems at school entrance, and vocabulary acquisition in adolescence. We compare performance in identical assessments across two…

Just Face It presents seven "faces" codified by Paul Ekman, Wallace Friesen and Joseph Hager, which can be linked through a kinesthetic process of association with vocabulary words that are frequently encountered on standardized college admission tests. The article is based on "Method for Facilitating Contextual Vocabulary…

The purpose of this study was to explore the funds of knowledge of two Burmese families and how this knowledge might foster their children's learning in the United States. The data used to inform this article included field notes based on observations, artifacts, and interviews with the parents and children of the families. The findings of this…

This study investigates the idea that knowledge of specialist subject vocabulary can make a significant and measurable impact on academic performance, separate from and additional to the impact of general and academic vocabulary knowledge. It tests the suggestion of Hyland and Tse (TESOL Quarterly, 41:235-253, 2007) that specialist vocabulary…

Vocabulary learning is an essential component of early literacy instruction. However, choosing appropriate words for instruction can be a challenge, with many resources encouraging the instruction of words that are either too easy or too obscure. This article, based on a systematic review of vocabulary interventions, presents research-based…

As economies are inevitably becoming dominated by multinational and global companies, the need for Language for Specific Purposes (LSP) is growing accordingly. Language institutes in higher education are trying to tailor their curriculum to meet the expectations of such companies each with their specific technical vocabulary. While LSP courses are…

Object names are a major component of early vocabularies and learning object names depends on being able to visually recognize objects in the world. However, the fundamental visual challenge of the moment-to-moment variations in object appearances that learners must resolve has received little attention in word learning research. Here we provide…

This paper describes high quality teaching practices in two schools that produce exceptional growth for all kinds of students. These practices focus on making the most of instructional time and exposing students to high quality content in a variety of contexts. They prove teachers don't need to choose between differentiating to meet students'…

The scientific study of reading has taught us much about the beginnings of reading in childhood, with clear evidence that the gateway to reading opens when children are able to decode, or 'sound out' written words. Similarly, there is a large evidence base charting the cognitive processes that characterise skilled word recognition in adults. Less…