Ways of helping beginning readers to understand the abstract quality of language are discussed. (CK)

Discusses strategies that will provide limited English proficient students with nonthreatening opportunities to acquire vocational and language skills. (JOW)

This study investigated whether misunderstanding of metaphor is attributable to inability to discover the ground, the demands of a particular form of metaphor, or surface aspects of metaphors. Results indicated task demands posed by predicative metaphors proved greater than those posed by topicless metaphors. (Author/DB)

The essentially sociolinguistic position of Bhatt and Martin-Jones on language awareness is assessed and analyzed in terms of applicability to the majority population. The question of whether bilingualism is a linguistic or social phenomenon is addressed, followed by an argument for including this issue in language awareness teaching. (Contains 10…

This paper documents the extent of differences in language proficiency across generations in a continuously changing society. It is demonstrated that each generation produces a specific language proficiency constellation that is directly related to the political and educational situation during the formative years of each of the generation…

Explores the origin of the Test of English-as-a-Foreign-Language, with its distinctive characteristics, in a 1961 conference, and seeks thereby to gain an understanding of how developments in language testing theory--and perhaps theory in general--are blended with the requirements and possibilities of real-life implementation. (Author/JL)

A professor of conservation biology, and champion of the spoken and written word, discusses who is corrupting the English language and why, describing the culprits and suggesting how to remedy the situation (e.g., restore the habit of talking directly to one another; use proper language; hold those who are corrupting the language accountable; and…

A study of 10 U.S. born or raised bilinguals literate in English and their heritage language shows that biliteracy is aided by (1) perceived language vitality from parental, institutional, or peer support for cultural identity and (2) access to heritage-language literacy environments. The social nature of literacy development was affirmed.…

Two studies addressed the role of representation ability and control of attention on solutions to an appearance-reality task based on two types of objects, real and representational. In Study 1, 67 preschool children (3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds) solved appearancereality problems and executive processing tasks. There was an interaction between object…

The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) posits six levels of proficiency and defines these largely in relation to empirically derived difficulty estimates based on stakeholder perceptions of what language functions expressed by 'Can-do' statements can be successfully performed at each level. Though also containing much valuable…

In this paper, two empirical studies are presented in which an attempt was made to explain individual differences in two different aspects of 4-year-olds' suggestibility, that is, their ability to resist false suggestions and memory impairments due to prior misinformation. As sources of individual differences cognitive skills along the information…

Although the vast majority of people in Ireland have at least some knowledge of Irish, only a small minority speak it as a community language (in Gaeltacht areas in the west) or in the more widely dispersed Irish-speaking households in the large English speaking area. Primary schools have had a central role in language revitalisation since the…

In recent years, the Educational Testing System organisation has developed two models of the computer-based Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). However, the computerization of the test has shown a number of problems according to the testees' origin. This paper suggests some of these problems after conducting short interviews with four…

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has had a great impact on states' policies in assessing English language learner (ELL) students. The legislation requires states to develop or adopt sound assessments in order to validly measure the ELL students' English language proficiency, as well as content knowledge and skills. While states have moved…

Reading in a foreign or second language is often a laborious process, often caused by underdeveloped word recognition skills, among other things, of second and foreign language readers. Developing fluency in L2/FL reading has become an important pedagogical issue in L2 settings and one major component of reading fluency is fast and accurate word…