Using role play and verbal-report data, this study investigates the sequential organization of politeness strategies of 24 learners of Spanish and whether the learners' ability to negotiate and mitigate a refusal was influenced by length of residence in the target community. Refusal sequences were examined throughout the interaction head acts,…

Ethnic identity and acculturation attitudes were studied in indigenous Sami (earlier named Lapps) and ethnocultural Kvens (descendants of early Finnish-speaking immigrants from the northern part of Sweden and Finland) in Northern Norway. The sample consisted of 674 Sami and 347 Kven high school students ages 16 to 19 years. Ethnic identity was…

The morpho-syllabic Japanese writing system consists of the phonetic scripts of hiragana and katakana, the logographic kanji derived from Chinese characters and the less well researched romaji based on the Roman alphabet. In four experiments we investigated the speed with which Japanese college students read, named, and transcribed romaji as…

Language education has a long tradition in the Finnish educational system owing to the official bilingualism of the country with the Finnish and Swedish languages, its geopolitical location, and the limited possibility to use the national languages in international contacts. Since the end of the 20th century, English has gained ground from other…

One of the most misunderstood issues in pre-K-12 education today is how to educate children who are not yet proficient in English. When policymakers refer to these students as English language learners (ELLs)--as many school district officials presently do--or as limited English proficient students (LEPs)--as federal legislators did in the No…

This policy brief analyzes factors related to the development of effective parental involvement for English Language Learners (ELLs). The authors explain that approaches to developing parental involvement in marginalized communities, including communities with ELL students, have often been based on deficit views of ELLs and have not recognized…

This study investigated the efficacy of Reading Recovery[R] (RR) with first grade English language learners (ELLs) in U.S. schools by examining the literacy outcomes of ELLs compared with their native English-speaking (NES) peers, who were also enrolled in RR. We also explored how ELLs' fall oral English proficiency levels were related to their…

The history of the role of assessment in policy-making for languages education in Australia over the past 20 years is characterised by a complex and shifting interface between language policy, curriculum and assessment. Three phases can be identified during which significant changes occur. These highlight an ongoing struggle for legitimacy for…

This report describes the relationships among English proficiency, economic status, and student performance on the 2007 Science Texas Assessment of Academic Knowledge and Skills for students in Austin Independent School District.

Several researchers have found that the type of task and learners' level of L2 proficiency are major determinants of the type and amount of metatalk. This paper is the first attempt to investigate potential interactions among the type of metatalk, the type of task and learners' level of L2 proficiency. Intermediate and advanced Japanese learners…

The teaching of an invented language rule has been proposed as a possible non-biased, language-independent assessment technique useful in differentiating young L2 learners with specific language impairment from their typically developing peers. The current study explores these notions by testing typically developing sequential bilingual children's…

The Multimedia Assisted Test of English Speaking was designed to assess global speaking competence of Korean speakers of English at Sookmyung Women's University. The test was developed with the help of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages for their proficiency guidelines and of the Center for Applied Linguistics for their…

The present study sets out to examine the strategies used by Chinese learners in a predominantly naturalistic environment and how such learner strategy use relates to their proficiency in the second language. Data were collected from four Chinese research students in the UK using semi-structured interviews. Their proficiency in English was…

Within the field of second language acquisition, the acquisition of phonetics and phonology has generally taken a back seat to studies of morphological and syntactical acquisition. Although the lacuna is slowly being remedied by a growing interest in the phenomena of second language (L2) phonology, investigations into the acquisition of…

Placing heritage Speakers into Korean language classes is a challenging task because they display a wide range of proficiencies. Since Standard placement tests often fail to place students effectively within a program, placement procedures that take into account heritage language use need to be developed. This article describes the Steps that the…