Learning a foreign language is a critical skill in the current context of globalization and multicultural communication. Present secondary and post-secondary foreign language classes admit increasing numbers of students with learning disabilities (LD). Given the particular challenges faced by these students in the area of language processing,…

This paper reflects upon the evolution of technology-enhanced language learning throughout the past two decades based on the author's own experience and how Information and Communications Technologies have played a prominent role on how language teaching pedagogies have evolved alongside the technologies themselves. Reference is made to the…

Although there is a growing body of literature on the development of reading skills of Spanish-speaking language minority children, little research has focused on the development of writing skills in this population. This study evaluated whether children's Spanish early reading skills (i.e., print knowledge, phonological awareness, oral language)…

This study examines the manifestations of purity and authenticity in 47 Basque bilinguals' reactions to code-switching. The respondents listened to two speech extracts with code-switching, filled in a short questionnaire and talked about the extracts in small groups. These conversations were then recorded. The respondents' beliefs can be…

This chapter reports on a qualitative investigation on the development of adult Spanish language learners' intercultural sensitivity while using Web 2.0 technologies to explore living abroad. Comments provided by 33 participants on wikis, Pinterest, and journal entries were analyzed using a line-by-line interpretative approach (Charmaz, 2006).…

The purpose of the 2014-2015 North Carolina Pre-Kindergarten (NC Pre-K) Evaluation study was to examine the characteristics and quality of the program and the outcomes for children during Pre-K, along with comparisons to previous years. NC Pre-K is a state-funded educational program for eligible 4-year-olds, designed to enhance their school…

As the employment of graduates appears among the performance indicators of institutions in higher education, universities are focussing more and more upon the development of employability related skills to enhance students' prospects in the job market. All UK universities are measured on the first jobs that their students acquire after graduation.…

The regional divisions termed as "Latin America" versus "Anglo-America" used by many geographers do not fully reflect the cultural and political trends in the world today. "Latin" is a term that was coined by the French Emperor Napoleon the III in order to justify Mexico's being ruled by Maximillian, and later picked…

Drawing on usage-based linguistics and its exemplar-based path of language learning, from recurring multiword expressions to increasingly abstract, schematized constructions, this article examines evidence for the exemplar-based developmental sequences for yes/no interrogatives and WH interrogatives in English as a second language (L2). The…

This study used a qualitative design to explore parent mentors' summaries of conversations with more than 1,000 individual families of deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children receiving parent-to-parent support as part of an existing family support project. Approximately 35% of the families were Spanish speaking. Five parent mentors who have…

In this plenary speech I examine multilingual interaction in a number of European regions in which minority languages are being revitalized. Education is a crucial variable, but the wider society is equally significant. The context of revitalization is no longer bilingual but increasingly multilingual. I draw on the results of a long-running…

Introduction: The development of immigrant students' language proficiency is one of the main challenges facing education professionals today. Our study was a longitudinal analysis of Catalan and Spanish language acquisition. Method: Participants were 72 immigrant students (27 Spanish speakers and 45 non-Spanish speakers) enrolled in compulsory…

We examined the language practices of five mother-child dyads during a structured play activity, particularly in relation to maternal question use. The study includes second-generation, 4-year-old children of Mexican immigrants who demonstrate either high vocabulary levels in English and Spanish or low levels of vocabulary in both languages.…

This study examines the effect of Spanish learners' gender on their rate of recall of abstract and concrete words. The experiment included forty-six learners of Spanish who were taught twentyfour new words via an instructional treatment based on L2-L1 and L1-L2 translations. The results of the immediate and a delayed posttest showed no effect for…

This study investigated how resource-demanding reading tasks and stressful conditions affect 1st-language (L1) and intermediate 2nd-language (L2) reading comprehension. Using the attentional control theory framework (Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo, 2007), we investigated the roles of central executive working memory (WM) resources,…