Communicative approaches to teaching language have emphasized the centrality of oral proficiency in the language acquisition process, but research investigating oral proficiency has been surprisingly limited, yielding an incomplete understanding of spoken language development. This study investigated the development of spoken language at the high…

One of the fundamental problems in language testing is the lack of adequate generalizability between what a test is measuring and what fulfills the learners' real world language use needs. It is important to recognize that no matter how precise a test measures a construct, if the way that a construct is defined and the way that test tasks are…

The present research examines the role of morphological awareness in reading comprehension of high school emergent bilinguals. As an increasing number of research studies contribute to our understanding of morphological awareness, i.e. the ability to reflect on and manipulate morphologically complex derived words, we are better able to appreciate…

Schools are under increasing pressure to reclassify their English learner (EL) students to "fluent English proficient" status as quickly as possible. This article examines timing to reclassification among Latino ELs in four distinct linguistic instructional environments: English immersion, transitional bilingual, maintenance bilingual,…

Worldwide, education promises a better future for aspiring generations. However, our current educational landscape has been shaped by neoliberal thinking, and is thus often oriented toward economic objectives. In Germany "Bildung" is a notion coined by philosophers representing a broad liberal and critical education, and the cultural and…

Drawing on qualitative interview and focus group data collected from Internationally Educated Teachers (IETs) in the context of two different research studies conducted in Ireland and Manitoba, Canada, this article critically examines how national/regional linguistic requirements and expectations of a hidden curriculum are experienced as barriers…

The present study examines two factors in relation to English L3 proficiency development and school performance in a third language: (a) parental education and (b) second language exposure within the living community. Participants (n?=?50) are Italian L1 students with German L2 and English L3. All students (eighth grade, 14 years of age) were…

When it comes to language learning, vocabulary learning is the main activity focused on. Vocabulary learning is the main problem and also the goal of new language learners. It is one of the major problems that language learners encounter during learning a new language. Krashen (1989) (cited in Tokac, 2005) points out the role of vocabulary in a…

Theories of second language acquisition such as the Interaction Hypothesis (Long, 1996) and Pushed Output Hypothesis (Swain, 1995) emphasize that learners must actually communicate in order to bring about the conditions for language acquisition. Learners who are more willing to communicate may create more opportunities for interaction, and thereby…

The Ontario Ministry of Education recently implemented the Steps to English Proficiency (STEP) language assessment framework to build educator capacity for addressing the needs of English language learners (ELLs) in K-12 schools. The STEP framework is a set of descriptors-based language proficiency scales that specify observable linguistic…

The focus of this paper is on the relationship between Albanian speakers' ethnolinguistic vitality (EV) perceptions and their language maintenance, language use and choice patterns. A subjective EV questionnaire, and a language usage questionnaire capturing domain-specific language use was completed by 200 Albanian immigrants of first and second…

Teaching a class of mixed EFL/ESL levels can be problematic for both instructors and students. The disparate levels of ability often mean that some students are not challenged enough while others struggle to keep pace. Drawing on experience in the university classroom in Japan, this practice promotes good preparation, self-reliance, inclusiveness,…

The purpose of the study aimed to investigate the effect of the Readers Theater (RT) training on elementary school students. In particular, changes in the students' English reading comprehension before and after the RT show, comparison of the students' responses to English learning, especially English reading, the students' opinions on the RT…

International students are an important part of today's global university sector. This paper explores, through 10 in-depth interviews, the perceptions of Vietnamese international students studying with regard to their experience of teaching and learning in Australia. The findings indicate that Vietnamese students struggle with language,…

In this article, I propose an index, called the Social Index of Educational Effectiveness (SIEE), which allows the establishment of an objective criterion to define the school's profile concerning the promotion of educational equity. It makes it possible to differentiate schools with an "inclusionary profile," (SIEE>0), from those…