This article reports on a study investigating the relative influence of the first language and dominant language (L1) on second language (L2) and third language (L3) morpho-lexical processing. A lexical decision task compared the responses to English NV-er compounds (e.g. "taxi driver") and non-compounds provided by a group of native…

Metalinguistic awareness is the ability to identify, reflect upon, and manipulate linguistic units. It plays a critical role in reading development. The present study investigated Chinese- and English-speaking preschoolers' metalinguistic awareness development and the role of cognitive and linguistic abilities in its development. Forty-two…

This paper reports research findings relating to a recent initiative to build capacity and support professional learning among educators to meet the needs of English language learners in Ontario schools. Drawing on data from case studies of educator teams in 16 school districts, the paper explores whether and how collaborative inquiry promoted…

This study investigates relations between second language (L2) lexical input and output in terms of word information properties (i.e., lexical salience; Ellis, 2006a). The data for this study come from a longitudinal corpus of naturalistic spoken data between L2 learners and first language (L1) interlocutors collected over a year's time. The…

Teachers often assume that personal experience is a rich resource for classroom chat and a gold standard for meaningful exchange of information. But in this paper, we first present three kinds of reasons for suspecting that primary intersubjectivity--the "me and you" relationship in which personal experiences are directly exchanged…

The growing number of young children around the world learning English has resulted in an increase in research in the field. Many of the studies have investigated approaches to learning and teaching, with a particular emphasis on effective pedagogies (e.g. Harley 1998; Shak and Gardner 2008). Other studies have focused on the linguistic gains of…

Catalonia is the Autonomous Community of Spain with the highest proportion of immigrant students. This study analyses the language attitudes of Catalan, as well as the possible explanatory variables for such attitudes, for a large sample with a high proportion of immigrant students and a great linguistic diversity. A questionnaire was given to…

The present paper analyzes the challenges of literacy development in cases of classical diglossia and bilingualism. The main argument is that the diverse levels of proficiency in the varieties present in a given linguistic market have implications for and are shaped by processes of literacy development, feelings of linguistic insecurity, and the…

In Turkey, where English is a foreign language and where learners share the same native language, teachers are often reluctant to use small group speaking activities because the learners do the ranking, bridge the information gap, or find an answer activities using their first (native) language. This article studies the problem and suggests a…

This Forum challenges and problematizes the term "incomplete acquisition," which has been widely used to describe the state of competence of heritage speaker (HS) bilinguals for well over a decade (see, e.g., Montrul, 2008). It is suggested and defended that HS competence, while often different from monolingual peers, is in fact not incomplete…

Schools across the country are currently facing the challenge of increasing numbers of students identified as English-language learners (ELL). Thus, knowledge of research about effective instruction for ELLs is becoming more important. On a positive note for principals, work has been done during the past few years to pull together critical…

This paper describes a qualitative study conducted over the course of one school year in an ethnically diverse school. Aimed at exploring the conditions under which parents of low socioeconomic status (SES) immigrant-background children will engage actively with the school, we involved parents and facilitators in story-telling sessions, sharing…

This study aimed to determine the effects of using the local and mother languages on primary students' academic performance in science, which is officially taught in English. Using the official language, English, and the two local languages--Filipino, the national and official language, and Bicol, the mother language of the respondents--science…

One often cited challenge to effective mother tongue-based bilingual education (MTBE) in multilingual countries like Ghana is the difficulty of developing curriculum and instructional materials in many languages. To explain this situation, factors such as shortage of writers and teachers in the local languages, lack of interest on the part of…

This study investigates the effects of cognacy on vocabulary learning. The research expands on earlier designs by measuring learning of English-Japanese cognates with both decontextualized and contextualized tests, scoring responses at two levels of sensitivity, and examining learning in a more ecologically valid setting. The results indicated…