This fact sheet compares the numbers of 18-25 year-old immigrants by nativity status, gender, race, ethnicity, geographic distribution, country of origin, year of arrival, marital status, educational attainment, and assesses population trends from 1994-2006. These numbers are based on Current Population Survey data. An appendix presents: 2006 At a…

Written for the general classroom teacher whose class includes English language learners (ELLs), as well as for ELL teachers working in general classrooms, this book portrays ELL students in grades 3-6 who learn essential reading and writing skills and are full members of the classroom community. Throughout the book, the authors emphasize the…

Immigrants compose an increasingly large share of the U.S. labor force and growing share of low-wage workers. Immigrants' hourly wages are lower on average than those for natives. Immigrant workers are much more likely than native workers to drop out of high school. Three-fourths of all U.S. workers with less than a ninth grade education are…

This paper describes two groups of students learning French online, one earning college credit through California's Coastline Community College and one studying for self-enrichment with the Annenberg/CPB Project and the University of Maryland University College. Students receive and are encouraged to explore weekly/semi-weekly current Web sites.…

This collection of papers is divided into four sections. Section 1, "Historical Linguistics," includes "The Grammaticalization of Non-Dative Reflexes of Latin ill- in Spanish" (Jose R. Carrasquel) and "'Esto es Ligero de Fazer': Object to Subject Raising in Medieval and Early Modern Spanish" (Mark Davies). Section 2, "Language Acquisition and…

This study examined teacher and peer assessment of English language oral presentation skills in Japanese classrooms. Twelve graduate university students' oral class presentations were assessed by a teacher and four peers. After presentations were rated, teachers calculated the evaluations, and classmates shared their opinions on the top three…

This paper describes the development of the Benesse Proficiency Test of English Communication, which was created for the Benesse Corporation of Japan. The Benesse test was developed in response to Japan's movement toward more communicative English language teaching and testing. It was intended to test language used in authentic communication. The…

This document was written to support the work of Migrant and Seasonal Head Start (MSHS) programs. The message provided is straightforward: we can meet the challenge of supporting first and second language development in preschool children. This paper is organized around four questions: (1) Can we facilitate children's acquisition of English…

A group of seven Japanese-language Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) testers licensed by the American Council on the Teaching of foreign Languages (ACTFL) conducted research related to ACTFL-OPI criteria. They first examined 24 audiotaped interview tests to see what kind of consistency there would be when individual testers applied general criteria…

A study used error analysis to examine and compare the English language proficiency and language learning patterns of two native Japanese speakers, aged 15 and 17. Data were elicited verbally from the subjects, with more elicited from the older, and analyzed for error patterns. Results indicate striking similarities in error patterns; however, a…

This study investigated language transfer, particularly in the realm of pragmatics, in a native Korean-speaking student of advanced Japanese. A series of tasks including a verbal report were used to elicit Japanese production and comprehension data. Results indicate that the learner drew heavily on his native language in completing the tasks, but…

This paper examines the latest results of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS), a multifaceted investigation of the educational performance, and social, cultural, and psychological adaptation of children of immigrants. Since late 1991, the study has followed the progress of a sizable sample of teenage youths representing 77…

This report provides annual information for the 1998-99 school year on grade-level retention in the Texas public school system, based on the Public Education Information Management System. Data on retention are provided by grade, ethnicity, gender, participation in special education, degree of English proficiency, and socioeconomic status. In…

Language is important in the public life of the United States because of four factors: globalization; the global diffusion of democracy and self-determination; the wave of immigration to the United States from all corners of the world; and the unique role America plays as the sole military and economic superpower. These conditions make it…

Critical language awareness refers to how conscious people are of the ideologies hidden in the language. A study was carried out to determine whether such a critical perspective towards text could be developed in an English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) context. This paper evaluates the results of the application of methods of critical discourse…