The objectives of this study are to describe 147 Thai elementary school teachers' English pronunciation competence and to identify a teacher variable that has an impact on their pronunciation. The instrument used to collect data consisted of two parts: a questionnaire to elicit Thai teachers' personal information (i.e., seven variables in all),…

Relations between bilingual children's patterns of conversational code-switching (responding to one language with another), the balance of their dual language input, and their expressive and receptive proficiency in two languages were examined in 115 2½-year-old simultaneous Spanish-English bilinguals in the U.S. Children were more likely to…

In the present study, we examined the relation of knowledge of semantic radicals to students' language proficiency and word reading for adult Chinese-as-a-foreign language students. Ninety-seven college students rated their proficiency in speaking, listening, reading, and writing in Chinese, and were administered measures of receptive and…

This exploratory research study was conducted to examine federally-mandated annual English language proficiency (ELP) assessment of English language learners (ELLs) and their use of accommodations on the assessment. The literature was examined for differences and similarities between the three types of testing scenarios as well as identifying gaps…

Designed to assess college students' English ability, the College English Test (CET) is regarded as the most influential English test in China. This study investigates students' perceptions of the impact of the CET on their English-learning practices and their affective conditions. A survey was administered to 150 undergraduate students at a…

This study describes the proficiency levels of limited English proficient (LEP) students and LEP student subgroups on the Idaho English Language Assessment (IELA). The report addresses two research questions: (1) What is the distribution of LEP students across proficiency levels on the total IELA scale and its five domains?; and (2) How does the…

Ideology can be understood as a guide to action, and therefore, language ideology can be viewed as a link between language ability on the one hand, and language use on the other. In this respect, language ideology plays a central role in the success of language revitalization movements. In an effort to understand how new language ideologies are…

Few prior studies have examined degree of fidelity between raters' assessments of oral performances and objectively observable prosodic indices of accentedness. Prosodic indices of accentedness quantify trait-relevant variance, whereas rater background variables represent trait-irrelevant variance. The present study, therefore, investigated the…

International studies, such as the "Programme for International Student Assessment" (PISA), have shown that, in most participating countries, students who do not typically speak the test language at home reach lower levels of reading comprehension than students using the test language at home (Stanat & Christensen, "2006").…

We report the results of an affective priming study conducted with proficient sequential German and French bilinguals to assess automatic affective word processing in L1 and L2. Additionally, a semantic priming task was conducted in both languages. Whereas semantic priming effects occurred in L1 and L2, and significant affective priming effects…

Using online measures of familiar word recognition in the looking-while-listening procedure, this prospective longitudinal study revealed robust links between processing efficiency and vocabulary growth from 18 to 30 months in children classified as typically developing (n = 46) and as "late talkers" (n = 36) at 18 months. Those late talkers who…

Routine formulae are highly frequent, situationally bound chunks that are beneficial to L2 learners' pragmatic performance. These formulae are usually more easily acquired in the target language setting but they are to some extent also learnable in foreign language classrooms. This study investigates the effect of different lengths of residence…

The present studies revealed different factors associated with the reported advantages found in fully bilingual children for metalinguistic awareness and executive control. Participants were 100 children in Study 1 and 80 children in Study 2 in the process of becoming bilingual by attending immersion programs. In both studies, "level of…

The study set out to examine the partial word knowledge of native speakers, L2 advanced, and intermediate learners of English with regard to four word features from Richards' (1976) taxonomy of aspects describing what knowing a word entails. To capture partial familiarity, the participants completed in writing a test containing low and mid…

This study examined the effects of a phonological awareness (PA) intervention on the phonological and alphabetic principle skills of first-grade English language learners (ELLs). Nine first-grade classrooms in two large elementary schools were screened with DIBELS Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF) and Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF) in the fall and…