Reports the results of research investigating the effectiveness of three types of English-as-Second-Language (ESL) programs in Quebec. Equivalent ESL curricula were taught over the regular 10-month school year in "distributed" programs, over a 5-month period in "massed" programs, and over a 5-month period along with…

Tested the hypothesis that individual differences in immediate-verbal-memory span predict success in second-language vocabulary acquisition. In the two-session study, adult subjects learned 56 English-Finnish translations. Tested one week later, subjects were less likely to remember those words they had difficulty learning, even though they had…

Examines British national examination results and related trends in the declining level of performance in modern languages relative to other subjects, suggesting that this trend to underperform in modern languages may be due in part to the relative difficulty of the examinations. The paper proposes strategies to help teachers become more rigorous…

Describes the creation and use of Web sites developed by secondary school teachers of German and European history who participated in an NEH-sponsored summer institute titled "Post-Wall Germany: Integrating Post-Unification German Culture into the High School Curriculum. Teacher participants also offer suggestions for using sites they created…

Evaluated a restructured literacy methods course intended to empower teachers to teach linguistically diverse students, examining the impact of the course redesign and team teaching. Data from observations of student teachers and focus group interviews indicated that participants felt well-prepared to teach second language learners, though they…

Examines the phenomenon of pragmatic transfer as a possible basis for cultural stereotypes. Data from second language (L2) German learners of English are compared with data from native speakers of American English. Results suggest that the German English L2 speakers produced responses more in keeping with German rules of speaking and conventions…

Examines issues confronting English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students in mainstream content areas at the secondary school level. Research on the integration of language, content, literacy, and culture in courses is reconducted at a Canadian school with a concentration of Asian background students. Focuses on discourse contexts for mainstreamed…

Because most English language learners receive instruction in content-area classes, teachers of these classes need to understand the varying backgrounds of ELLs and their different levels of conversational and academic English skills. The authors have developed a research-based model for effectively delivering sheltered instruction to ELLs in…

This article presents data from two yearlong ethnographic studies of the biliteracy instruction and development of young Latina/o children in two counter-hegemonic English immersion classes in the English-only milieu established by California's Proposition 227. The author first describes the struggle that the teachers engaged in as they sought to…

Assessments in English that are constructed for native English speakers may not provide valid inferences about the achievement of English language learners (ELLs). The linguistic complexity of the test items that are not related to the content of the assessment may increase the measurement error, thus reducing the reliability of the assessment.…

Children who speak different home languages and dialects in a monolingual classroom often carry the challenge of having to develop literacy in a different language. This article presents a qualitative study of five first graders who speak different home languages in an inner city mainstream English classroom. Through interviews, classroom writing,…

Some critics have commented that online courses may discourage teacher-student interaction, which is considered by teachers and researchers as an important element in language learning. A total of 60 associate degree students who attended an online English course in Hong Kong responded to a questionnaire asking them about their effort and interest…

Two studies of Grade 1 reading interventions for English-language (EL) learners at risk for reading problems were conducted. Two samples of EL students were randomly assigned to a treatment or untreated comparison group on the basis of their language of instruction for core reading (i.e., Spanish or English). In all, 91 students completed the…

As our world becomes increasingly multicultural in nature, multilingual skills constitute an everyday phenomenon in schools. Since most of the second-language research has focused on school-age students, more research had to be conducted with language-minority students at the kindergarten level in order for psychologists and educators to develop…

With its focus on simplification universals, developmental orders, teachability, and functional-grammatical bases for acquisition, the well-known research on German (L2) language acquisition has contributed much to SLA research in general. At the same time, sociolinguistic investigations focus squarely on the difficult social conditions that…