The purpose of BEST Plus is to assess the ability to understand and use unprepared, conversational, everyday language within topic areas generally covered in adult education courses. It is one of several standardized assessments approved by the National Reporting System (NRS, 2008), which is the accountability system for federally funded ESL and…

The goal of this study was to longitudinally examine relationships between early factors (child and mother) that may influence children's phonological awareness and reading skills 3 years later in a group of young children with cochlear implants (N = 16). Mothers and children were videotaped during two storybook interactions, and children's oral…

Purpose: This study examined the efficacy of a professional development program for early childhood educators that facilitated emergent literacy skills in preschoolers. The program, led by a speech-language pathologist, focused on teaching alphabet knowledge, print concepts, sound awareness, and decontextualized oral language within naturally…

Fewer than 25% of all states across the United States (18 total) currently require oral proficiency exams for initial foreign language teacher licensure. Of those 18 states, 8 require oral proficiency testing for all world languages certification, 5 for non-Roman based language certification only, and 5 for alternative certification only. The…

Grounded in research and practical expertise, this volume helps K-6 teachers skillfully support all of their English language learners (ELLs)--from a single student to an entire classroom. Ideas for teaching ELLs across different grade and proficiency levels include ways to link instruction to students' lived experiences, use a variety of…

This dissertation investigates the acquisition of oblique relative clauses in L2 Spanish by English and Moroccan Arabic speakers in order to understand the role of previous linguistic knowledge and its interaction with Universal Grammar on the one hand, and the relationship between grammatical knowledge and its use in real-time, on the other hand.…

Developments in universal newborn hearing screening programs and assistive hearing technology have had considerable effects on the speech, language, and educational success of children who are deaf or hard of hearing. Several recent research studies of children who are deaf or hard of hearing and who use spoken language as their primary method of…

Situated in the field of computer assisted language learning (CALL), this article reports an instrumental case study on the use of audioblogs for developing students' Chinese speaking skills. The intervention focused on scaffolding students in metacognitive reflection of their oral performances. The case focused on seven students who completed…

The changes facing industries are necessitating a concomitant change in university curriculum. Before instigating a reform, however, education providers need to acquire an understanding of the most pertinent development needs essential for filling industrial competence gaps. The Language Centre at the Helsinki University of Technology in Finland…

This paper challenges the distinction between text and utterance as one that overstates the separateness of literate and oral practices. The literacy lessons of the Passover Haggadah are shown to celebrate the intellectual necessity of interruption and interpretation of the sacred text, practices which are firmly rooted in oral tradition.…

Discusses the word "telementation," coined by Roy Harris, which in essence means the faxing of thoughts from A to B. (nine references) (CK)

Discusses the revision of the 1986 American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages guidelines for evaluating speaking proficiency. (Author/VWL)

Students were audio taped while working in teams on a WebQuest. Although gender-segregated, each team included both fifth- and sixth-graders. Interactions from two tasks were analyzed according to categories (exploratory, cumulative, disputational, tutorial) defined by the Spoken Language and New Technology (SLANT) project (e.g., Wegerif &…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the ways second grade children signaled the meanings they made from pictures and print and to identify ways they signaled new meanings when transmediations between these two semiotic systems took place. The study was a mixed methods study using qualitative methods in a case study format for the first…

The 2011 Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, a joint conference with the Indiana Foreign Language Teachers Association, focused on trends, innovations, and national programs that are picking up steam as the first decade of the twenty-first century ends. Several innovations have the potential to unify world language…