Based on her 20 years of teaching Spanish, Leslie Davison strives for a holistic approach to teaching and learning that is authentic and relevant to her young language learners. Herein, she shares three keys to teaching elementary level students in a way that ensures they will have a "Can Do" attitude in terms of language proficiency and…

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the contents of in-use Year 5 and Year 6 textbooks in Malaysian primary schools in exploring the strengths and weaknesses of the textbooks. Does it really apply all the methods and suitability for the pupils? It is also aim to study whether the textbooks fit to all level of pupils' proficiency in English…

A national survey reports that 42% of mainstream teachers have English language learners (ELLs) in their classrooms, but only 12.5% say they have been prepared to work with them (National Center for Education Statistics 2002). This article supplies a framework to address the cognitive demands of ELLs with varying proficiency levels, guided by the…

For over two decades, there has been increasing concern regarding the science learning of disadvantaged students such as indigenous or disabled students. The academic achievement of students with hearing impairment has been seen as relatively low. This low achievement has been mainly due to students' poor literal ability and not because of…

This paper investigates how pupils' growth trajectories in three language domains (reading fluency, spelling, and reading comprehension) are related to their own socioeconomic and ethnic background and to the socioeconomic and ethnic composition of their primary school. Using multilevel piecewise growth curve analysis, the growth trajectories…

Frequent use of non-finites is an important feature of English academic writing (Chafe & Danielewicz, 1987), but teachers and students in the Chinese environment are not aware of it. To investigate the problems that can be found in academic writings by Chinese students is significant in two aspects: academic writing by Chinese EFL students…

Reading fluency is one of the underlying factors of successful language curricula and it is also one of the defining characteristics of good readers. A lack of fluency is a common characteristic of struggling readers. There is a growing body of research that demonstrates proficiency in reading fluency is important for success in learning to read…

This study investigates subject pronominal expression in second language Chinese and compares learner usage with patterns found in their first language. The results show that (a) overt pronouns are used more for singular, +animate subjects than plural, -animate ones; (b) switch in subject surface form favors overt pronouns; (c) English and Russian…

The current study tests the Interface Hypothesis through forward and backward anaphora in complex sentences with temporal subordinate clauses in highly proficient English-speaking learners' second-language (L2) Chinese. Forward anaphora is involved when the overt pronoun "ta" "he/she" or a null element appears in the subject…

This study investigated the role of morphological and contextual information in inferring the meaning of unknown L2 words during reading. Four groups of college-level ESL students, beginning (n?=?34), intermediate (n?=?27), high-intermediate (n?=?21), and advanced (n?=?25), chose the inferred meanings of 20 pseudo compounds (e.g.,…

Research on the relationship between English language proficiency standards and academic content standards serves to provide information about the extent to which English language learners (ELLs) are expected to encounter academic language use that facilitates their content learning, such as in mathematics and science. Standards-to-standards…

The proficiency dimension of the learning-oriented assessment (LOA) framework addresses the specific linguistic and content knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) possessed by L2 learners -it is the substance, or the "what" of teaching and learning. It raises questions such as: What do learners know? What are they expected to know? What…

Since the Obama administration launched the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in 2012, which offers temporary relief from deportation and the right to apply for work authorization for certain unauthorized immigrants who came to the United States as children, 55 percent of the 1.2 million youth who immediately met the program's…

Purpose: In this study, the authors investigated factors that affect bilingual children's vocabulary and story recall abilities in their 2 languages. Method: Participants included 191 Latino families and their children, who averaged 59 months of age. Data on parental characteristics and children's exposure to and usage of Spanish and English were…

The current study examined the effects of text-based relational (i.e., cohesion), propositional-specific (i.e., lexical), and syntactic features in a source text on subsequent integration of the source text in spoken responses. It further investigated the effects of word integration on human ratings of speaking performance while taking into…