This study was conducted by members of a site of the California Writing Project in partnership with a large, urban, low-SES school district where 93% of the students speak English as a second language and 69% are designated Limited English Proficient. Over an eight-year period, a relatively stable group of 55 secondary teachers engaged in ongoing…

This paper outlines the 4-tiered evaluation and classroom practices of one English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) teacher related to writing abilities that involve the use of audiocassettes that integrate writing, reading, speaking, and listening from pre-writing to teacher evaluation and student remediation. Daily instruction includes writing,…

This article points out the difficulty of finding computer assisted language learning (CALL) software that is both appropriate for teachers' pedagogical needs and user friendly. Authoring programs offer simplicity but little flexibility. Innovative software requires the use of authentic programming languages or more sophisticated software. The…

This article addresses the learning of second language (L2) writing skills to show how pictures can be used as an effective guided writing tool to facilitate students' writing process and to improve their writing proficiency. A study was conducted with 53 university students who had a prior knowledge of Spanish in secondary school. All students…

This anthology of sociolinguistic/anthropologically-oriented articles on ethnic bilingualism and bilingual education seeks to understand bilingual education outside of the methodological-pedagogical issues involved, that is, from a theory and research, rather than classroom, perspective. Bilingual education is seen as the result of societal…

This critical review of the literature examines the characteristics and needs of limited English proficient (LEP) adults and the programs and services typically available to them. The complexities of the LEP population are explored first, including differences in education, English proficiency, labor market experience, and economic status.…

Based on personal experience, this paper examines the ambiguities of the Likert-type 5-point scale in learning strategy elicitation. Four parallel questionnaires consisting of the same batch of 20 items taken from the Oxford scale (1990) were administered among a group of 120 tertiary level, non-English majors in China. Questionnaire 1 used the…

A study investigated the applicability of the theory of tentative developmental stages in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) development (TDS), which posits specific sequences for specific language features and hypothesizes developmental stages that cut across those sequences. The six stages are defined by specified combinations of three speech…

This curriculum offers lesson plans for 5 hours of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) education instruction for high school and young adult students of English-as-a-Second Language (ESL). It helps students develop English language skills while it helps them understand the AIDS risk factors. The curriculum is designed to help cope with the…

This digest discusses ways that the school librarian in one high school fostered a positive environment in the school library for English-as-a-Second-Language students and broadened the role of the school library in effecting literacy experiences for these students. The digest addresses how one school librarian made the library a welcoming place…

Three reports present identification and analysis findings on a business language program offered at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University for the learning of French, German, and Japanese, sponsored by the Department of English. The goal was to teach students the languages so that they may function in foreign company representative offices in Hong…

Computer assisted language learning (CALL) packages offer the majority of students who are learning English as a foreign language the opportunity for individual instruction. To meet the needs of an individual student, an adaptive CALL environment must have a dynamic model of student performance, a means of varying the difficulty of the learning…

The issue of what exactly is measured by different types of reading items has been a matter of interest in the field of reading research for many years. Language teaching and testing specialists have raised the question of whether a reading test for foreign students wishing to enter a university in the United States should include questions…

Solving the challenges of educating language-minority students to the high standards expected of all children requires a willingness to reform the usual practices at many of today's public schools. This volume, the second in a series of three, presents findings of a study that examined exemplary school-reform efforts involving the education of…

More than one-fifth of American school-age children and youth come from language-minority families--homes in which languages other than English are spoken. This volume, the last in a series of three, describes the research design and methodology for a study that examined exemplary school-reform efforts involving the education of limited…