In this article, the author talks about his Dakota ancestry. Here, he also talks about "Lamenting Dakota Language Loss," a paper he delivered at the 2004 Modern Language Association (MLA) convention. At the convention, he raised several questions regarding the revitalization of endangered Native American languages. Among other things, he points…

Foreign language learners typically experience considerable anxiety about taking listening tests. This study investigated how four forms of listening support (pre-teaching of content and vocabulary, question preview, and repeated input) affect the anxiety levels of college students in Taiwan taking a multiple-choice achievement test, which counts…

Although it is commonly believed that language and culture are inexorably linked, the precise nature of this relationship remains elusive. This study investigated the hypothesis that a loss in language signals a loss in culture if language is considered a central value. This hypothesis was investigated by rating the Hindi and English proficiency…

Public school students in Japan must take English as a required subject for three years in junior high school and for three more years in senior high school. In spite of the amount of classroom time invested, and in spite of the available learning support services, the foreign Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) system included, the English…

Differences between early and late Irish-immersion secondary school students are examined, not only in terms of academic outcome and target language ability, but also in terms of attitudes to learning the target language. Participants included a gender-balanced group of 97 students in Irish-immersion in fourth year of secondary school (mean age…

This study explored the extent to which the reading-to-write construct is the sum of one's reading and writing abilities or an independent construct. The investigation included an analysis of (a) test tasks, (b) the relationship of test task scores and scores on reading and writing measures, and (c) the effects of proficiency level and educational…

Keiwa College, a small liberal arts college in Niigata, Japan, has developed a number of on-campus and community-based teacher training programmes to benefit our students in the teacher education course in the Department of English and Communication and in-service English teachers in the area. These programmes provide students with opportunities…

In 2001, the U.S. Department of Education and the Ministry of Education in China entered into a bilateral partnership to develop a technology-driven approach to foreign language learning that integrated gaming, immersion, voice recognition, problem-based learning tasks, and other features that made it a significant research and development pilot…

This study highlights the complexities associated with learning a heritage language (HL) abroad, specifically with regard to identity, expectations, and beliefs about language and language learning, by examining the ways that HL learners talk about themselves. These are important topics to study because perceptions of language learning have been…

The issue of identifying reading difficulties and disabilities in English language learners (ELLs) is a complex one. It is an area that draws on the diverse disciplines of first- and second-language acquisition, literacy, English language learning, and reading, including differences and disabilities research. This literature review aims to…

This article offers a critique of the lack of attention to the place of online course offerings in foreign language departments and/or distance education in general by the MLA's 2007 report on foreign language departments and their role in the academy. The article responds to how currently accessible technology (course management system platforms…

This study investigated the responses of two groups (n = 85) of EFL learners toward their experience with extensive reading in a three-month EFL college reading class in which two novels (narrative) and fourteen expository texts were the main reading text. Using a three-part survey questionnaire and the follow-up interviews, this study attempted…

This paper discusses culture-specific learning strategies of 177 students learning Greek as a second/foreign language in an academic setting. The study reports on descriptive statistics of the data collected through implementation of the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) and processed in order to determine frequency of learners'…

The purpose of this study was to identify the factors that influence American music immersion (AMI) in Taiwanese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners and to determine if AMI is a predictor of vocabulary acquisition and American lifestyle literacy improvement during online, multimedia music study. The results of this study suggest that…

This article reports the findings of a study on the experiences of a small but growing population of Latino students in a small-town secondary school. All teachers and administrators were surveyed regarding their impressions of Latino students. All students in the school (95% White, 5% Latino) were surveyed regarding their impressions of…