These books are designed to help English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students learn the skills they need to communicate the step-by-step aspects of daily activities. Unlike most picture dictionaries, this is a verb-based multi-skills program that uses a student text with a clear and colorful pictorial detail as a starting point and focuses on the…

This project was conducted to determine whether using videotapes, designed for the purpose of teaching English pronunciation, would improve the pronunciation of English as a second language learners at the Lebanon Adult Education Center in Pennsylvania. The videotapes used were entitled "Perfect English Pronunciation." Learners were…

The 1997 issues of "JALT Journal" include the following articles: "Influence of Learning Context on Learners' Use of Communication Strategies"; "The Eiken Test: An Investigation"; "Assessing EFL Student Progress in Critical Thinking with the Ennis-Weir Critical Thinking Essay Test"; "Contrastive…

A significant number of Hispanic children's books and juvenile short stories and novels produced in the last two decades reveal the social and cultural elements that affect the lives, traditions, and beliefs of young adults from Spanish-speaking countries. These books contain sociocultural realism, yet with a touch of the innocence and freshness…

Elementary two-way immersion (TWI) programs continue to proliferate throughout the United States, but the number of successfully implemented secondary TWI programs remains small. Many districts with TWI cohorts that are reaching the upper elementary grades must now make complex decisions about whether and how to extend their programs into middle…

These issues include the following articles: "Portuguese Philology in Brazil" (Heitor Megale, Cesar Nardelli Cambraia); "Implications of Brazilian Portuguese Data for Current Controversies in Phonetics: Towards Sharpening Articulatory Phonology" (Eleonora Cavalconte Albano); "Morphological Studies in Brazil: Data and…

This report investigates the role of Title I federal funding in helping to educate the estimated 3.5 million limited English proficient (LEP) K-12 students in the United States. Specific questions to be addressed include the following: How many LEP students are being served through targeted and schoolwide Title I programs? How are LEP students…

This paper describes efforts to devise a more effective method of assessing oral proficiency in English using a computer-based testing and computer-based test result management system. This new test would be designed to directly operationalize the second language constructs it measured, and would be developed with reference to the best practices…

An experiment in Japan investigated the kind of input that is effective in enabling college-level students of English as a Second Language to formulate grammar, specifically prepositional and phrasal verbs. A grammaticality judgment test and a translation test were given to 131 Japanese university students, who were divided into three treatment…

A national study investigated: (1) the amount of time high school foreign language teachers devote to the study of culture in language courses; (2) culture content covered in language courses; (3) strategies and materials used; (4) the extent of teacher cooperation in combining language and culture study, and whether it fosters inclusion of…

This paper discusses the development of a syllabus for elementary-level college courses in the Japanese language, with a focus on course purpose, objectives, learning materials and resources, setting, learning activities, testing, and other considerations. It examines the characteristics of students who take elementary Japanese courses and reviews…

The report profiles the work of Marsha S. Slater, who teaches at the International High School in New York (New York), a highly successful school devoted exclusively to enabling English-as-a-Second-Language students to develop the linguistic, cognitive, and cultural skills necessary for success in and beyond high school. The report describes the…

The paper examines California's Proposition 227, a voter-imposed statutory amendment that substantially altered the method by which non-English-speaking children learn English in California's public schools, looking at the forces behind the legislation and the challenges to its implementation. The context for bilingual education in California is…

An expert on second language acquisition examines and refutes five commonly offered arguments against bilingual education: (1) it is responsible for the high Hispanic dropout rate; (2) most immigrants succeed without bilingual education; (3) the United States is the only nation that has bilingual education; (4) bilingual education failed in…

Learning to write is difficult, especially for those beginning the process at the university level, such as dialect speakers of English and speakers of English as a Second Language. Recent pedagogical experimentation with external dialogues involving instructors and peers to provoke critical thinking have not been very successful. One explanation…