This qualitative study examined the experiences of three eighth-grade prealgebra teachers as they planned student sensitive lessons for their ethnoculturally diverse students. The teachers worked in a lesson study group with a diversity consultant, an ESL (English as a second language) teacher who had a variety of multicultural experiences from…

This article reports on a survey of heritage language learners (HLLs) across different heritage languages (HLs) and geographic regions in the United States. A general profile of HLLs emerges as a student who (1) acquired English in early childhood, after acquiring the HL; (2) has limited exposure to the HL outside the home; (3) has relatively…

I welcome the feedback from Downey et al. on my analysis of the "Versant for English" Test (formerly called the PhonePass Test), as it provides opportunities to engage in dialogue on differing notions of language performance and authenticity and address the implications of technological expediency influencing and shaping the design of test tasks.…

This report serves as a quick reference guide for elected officials to compare key education policies and data in their states to the rest of the nation. The first section highlights major state policies for all 50 states in both table and chart formats (see Summary Charts ). The second section provides key state data, such as per-student spending…

The Cultural Heritage Bilingual Program (CHBP) was developed for English Language Learner (ELL) students from language groups not served by current bilingual programs in the Houston Independent School District (HISD), which are designed for Spanish-speaking ELLs. The largest group of students in this category consists of ELLs whose home language…

In compliance with the Indian Education Act (NMSA1976 Section 22), the purpose of the Tribal Education Status Report (TESR) is to inform stakeholders of the New Mexico Public Education Department's (PED) current initiatives specific to American Indian students and their educational progress. This report examines both the current conditions and…

This study investigated cognitive factors that might influence Chinese EFL learners' argumentative essay writing in English. The factors that were explored included English (L2) language proficiency, Chinese (L1) writing ability, genre knowledge, use of writing strategies, and working memory capacity in L1 and L2. Data were collected from 136…

The purpose of this exploratory study was to identify factors impacting second language oral proficiency of native English speaking secondary students in public schools in Texas that had chosen to complete at least two years of traditional classroom Spanish instruction. Further, the study sought to determine the effectiveness of the traditional…

Prior research investigating the relationships between immigrants' linguistic abilities in the target language of the host country and their settlement experiences has done so largely from the perspective of language proficiency. Instead of language proficiency per se, we investigated this relationship from the perspective of a competency-based…

This interview study of seven highly proficient Korean users of English examines the role of the "ideal second language self" as a motivator in the learning of English as a global language. It explores their perspectives on the cultural associations that English holds, the degree to which a "global identity" is a part of their…

Professor Elana Shohamy was born in New York and moved to Israel at a young age. It was an interesting time for the country and the Hebrew language. In this article, Professor Shohamy shares her keen insights into her experiences growing up in Israel. She obtained her teacher's certificate from David Yelin Teacher's College in Jerusalem,…

The present investigation intends to make a comparison between integratively motivated students of English at Islamic Azad University of Shiraz and their instrumentally motivated peers in terms of their oral performance. To this end, 35 junior students (15 males and 20 females) were selected out of 54 initial participants based on their scores on…

Analyzing three waves of data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey, this article explores the process of language assimilation among second-generation Latinos. Although previous studies have focused on the shift from mother tongue to English across immigrant generations, few have examined change in language proficiency over time…

This study investigates how motivation and interaction shape the speaking proficiency of study abroad (SA) and classroom or at home (AH) language learners. The author administered a motivation questionnaire, language contact profile, and pretest and posttest simulated oral proficiency interview. The data reveal that SA and AH students had similar…

This article considers whether the use of specific communication strategies can improve learners' English proficiency in communicative tasks. Japanese college students (n= 62) participated in a 12-week course of English lessons using a communicative approach with strategy training. To investigate the influence of specific strategy use, their…