The current study examines the relationship between the SAT® College Readiness Benchmark with the outcome of graduation from college in either four or six years. The results indicate that the SAT benchmark is indeed differentiating between those students who graduate within four years and those who do not, as well as between those who graduate…

Research in the fields of second-language acquisition and education has supported the value of written reflection, but scant research has explored how other types of reflection may come into play when learners employ strategies and produce oral language. This paper reports findings from an action research study that focused on integrating…

Corrective feedback has been discussed mainly in second language acquisition contexts, but less has been done concerning corrective feedback in foreign language settings. In this descriptive study, conducted at a Mexican university, our aims were to identify the perceptions of instructors of English as a foreign language about corrective feedback…

Speaking performance tests typically employ raters to produce scores; accordingly, variability in raters' scoring decisions has important consequences for test reliability and validity. One such source of variability is the rater's level of expertise in scoring. Therefore, it is important to understand how raters' performance is influenced by…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to identify the workforce skills perceived to be critical in the Chattanooga region, and to explore how colleges and businesses can partner to effectively develop those skills. Data from a June 2011 survey of workforce stakeholders in the Chattanooga region were analyzed. The 78 survey respondents…

Parents of 592 children between the age of 0 ; 8 and 1 ; 4 completed the Estonian adaptation of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (ECDI Infant Form). The relationships between comprehension and production of different categories of words and gestures were examined. According to the results of regression modelling the…

There is a general public concern in Kenya that majority of Form Four school leavers lack communicative and linguistic competence and thus cannot sustain conversation in English language without occasionally code switching to "Sheng" or Kiswahili. This study sought to find out the classroom activities used by teachers to promote…

This study looks at the relationship between L1 (Russian) attrition and L1 reading ability in Russian-English-speaking bilingual children. Ten Russian-English bilingual children and 10 adults participated in this study. Nine out of 10 children participants were born in the US and used L1 as their primary language of interaction within the family,…

The goal of this longitudinal study is to examine the relationships between early child factors (i.e., age at identification, enrollment in early intervention, oral language skills) and school readiness skills (i.e., conceptual knowledge) in a group of young children with hearing loss (HL). Standardized language, cognition, and conceptual…

Discourse particles are ubiquitous in spoken discourse. Yet despite their pervasiveness very few studies attempt to look at their use in the pedagogical setting. Drawing on data from an intercultural corpus of speech and a textbook database, the present study compares the use of discourse particles by expert users of English in Hong Kong with…

Background: Poor comprehenders are children who show significant deficits in their reading comprehension performance, despite average, or above-average word reading ability. To date, there have been no in-depth studies of the mathematical performance profiles of such children. Aims: This study aimed to explore the mathematical profiles of poor…

The teaming of ACTFL and the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education resulted in the requirement that teacher candidates speak at the Advanced Low (AL) or higher level on the Oral Proficiency scale. Providing the means to help candidates meet that minimum standard for certification is a fundamental consideration. This article…

Aim: The aim of this study was to compare spoken language production in children with permanent childhood hearing impairment (PCHI) whose PCHI was confirmed either early or late. Method: Audio-taped spoken narrative was assessed for syntax, phonology, morphology, and narrative in transcripts from a population-based sample of 89 children (49 males,…

Language learning is a complex process that is controlled or influenced by a host of linguistic and non-linguistic factors. Some of these factors are the main concerns of psychologists rather than linguists. Ever since psychology began to develop in the 20th century, more and more individual characteristics were identified and defined. Eysenck's…

To address the need for reform in undergraduate science education a new instructional model called "Argument-Driven Inquiry" (ADI) was developed and then implemented in a undergraduate chemistry course at a community college in the southeastern United States (Sampson, Walker, & Grooms, 2009; Walker, Sampson, & Zimmerman, in press). The ADI…