This chapter presents how I integrated Virtual Exchange (VE) programmes delivered by Soliya in two courses at an international undergraduate liberal arts and sciences college. In both cases the VE programme was fully integrated in the courses as a graded element. The students of beginner Italian participated in the four-week long Connect Express.…

This book examines the role of interlocutors and their individual differences (IDs) in second language (L2) development from four theoretical lenses: the cognitive-interactionist approach, sociocultural theory, the variationist approach, and complex dynamic systems theory. A theoretical overview to each approach is written by a preeminent scholar…

Communicative multimedia is becoming a significant tool of improving metalinguistic knowledge (Lai, 2015, 2016). This research applied three basic examples of song, movie (Hung & Higginsb, 2015, 2016; King, 2002, 2010; Sanne, 1994, 2006; Tillmana, 1997, 2006) and game pedagogies (Tsai, 2017) for discussing cognitive consequences of Taiwanese…

To learn more about how nonprofits, educators, employers, and policymakers can work together to upskill the limited English proficient (LEP) workforce, Jobs for the Future (JFF) interviewed students and instructors who had participated in the pathbreaking and innovative bilingual training program known as Growing Opportunities in America for…

English learners' (ELs) day-to-day experiences in school change when reclassified as fully English proficient. Prior research, however, is mixed on how reclassification influences outcomes. Many studies also do not or cannot explore key long-term outcomes or identify impacts over time. In this study I leverage longitudinal student data in a…

This paper applies a critical lens to a Master's degree program in education in one University in Norway and its stated aim of promoting critical skills in students from the global south in particular. Two groups of students, one an international mix in Oslo, and the other, South Sudanese students studying in Hawassa, Ethiopia, were compared. The…

The term "newcomers" is commonly used to describe students who have recently arrived in U.S. schools. Depending on usage, newcomers may mean students in their first 6 months in U.S. schools, in their first 4 years, or anywhere in between. A majority arrive speaking little to no English, most are from socioeconomically disadvantaged…

In today's interconnected world, many career fields--such as diplomacy, national security, and business--need individuals with knowledge about world languages and cultures. To address these areas of needed expertise--both at the federal level as well as in the education, business, and nonprofit sectors--the Higher Education Act of 1965, as…

There have been thousands of Syrian kids studying at Turkish public schools since the beginning of Syrian migration. This study aims to reveal the social and cultural motivations causing the barriers in front of inclusive education of Syrian refugees within school environments. This qualitative research was designed as a case study. Accordingly,…

Willingness to Communicate (WTC) is among the concepts that has received considerable attention in EFL/ESL research in recent years as it brings together a myriad of factors that explain why L2 learners do or do not engage in L2 communication. An EFL classroom provides an environment that promotes use of the target language, yet Thai learners are…

Written communication skills are one of the most assessed criteria in higher education contexts, especially in humanities disciplines, including teacher education. There is a need to research and develop an assessment grading tool (i.e. criteria sheet or rubric) that would assist students in pre-service teacher education programs to better…

A recurring question in the literature of heritage language acquisition, and more generally of bilingual acquisition, is whether all linguistic domains are sensitive to input reduction and to cross-linguistic influence and to what extent. According to the Interface Hypothesis, morphosyntactic phenomena regulated by discourse-pragmatic conditions…

This study represents program-level action research. A U.S. university Spanish language program had a goal for students to reach the ACTFL (2012) Intermediate Mid level after 2 years. An empirical question that resulted after regular end-of-year testing was whether the students were doing their best on assessments. To investigate this, 253…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine parental and students' decisions regarding participating in K-12 level study abroad programs in Manitoba, Canada. Design/methodology/approach: The study reports on data collected through document analysis and semi-structured interviews with 18 international students and 14 parents. Findings: The…

The college readiness and standard English proficiency of preservice teachers of color are of increasing concern among those working to foster diversity within the teacher workforce. In this article, the author uses positioning theory to examine standard English proficiency and agency among first-generation Black and Latinx preservice teachers,…