"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) Debating Education: Obama and Romney Promote Education Records, Importance of Education to the Economy and Public Safety During…

The present paper shows the first results of a linguistic project devoted to the construction of web learning tools for reinforcing sensitivity to diaphasic varieties and for learning style variation in L2/LS learning. (Contains 1 figure and 1 footnote.) [Support for this research was provided by the VALERE Project.]

In response to social, political and educational imperatives, Australian universities are currently reviewing the way in which they provide for the growing number of students for whom English is not a first language. A document recently published by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations has increased the sense of urgency…

The study examined heritage speaker grammars and to what extent they diverge with respect to grammatical gender from adult L2 learners. Results from a preference task involving code-mixed Determiner Phrases (DPs) and code-mixed copula constructions show a difference between these two types of operations. Heritage speakers patterned with the…

This article explores the use of group work strategies to increase student interaction and learning. Despite the growing linguistic and cultural diversity in tertiary institutions, there is strong evidence of minimal interaction between "domestic" and "international" students in classrooms and in wider university contexts. This study investigates…

Programs in the United States that certify PreK-12 teachers in English as a second language (ESL) must meet high and consistent standards in their preservice preparation. However, there is little empirical evidence on the degree to which such preparation actually meets the needs of teachers once they begin their careers. Teaching English to…

This forum article describes a postgraduate certificate teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) program with a strong linguistics orientation and argues that such a program provides novice language teachers with knowledge and skills superior to those of programs which focus more on methodology and practicum experience and less on…

This article reviews the issue of compulsory English in the Asia-Pacific region and examines the English component of a single-site exploratory study of multilingualism in a disadvantaged ethnic minority (DEM) community of Northeast Thailand. The concept of ethnolinguistic vitality was used as a framework for an analysis of community language…

Because school violence is widespread, social and emotional competence must be targeted. "Second Step" is a social and emotional violence-prevention curriculum that teaches prosocial skills and reduces aggressive behavior. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of "Second Step" implementation on students (N = 403) in preschool…

Foreign-accented speakers are generally regarded as less educated, less reliable and less interesting than native speakers and tend to be associated with cultural stereotypes of their country of origin. This discrimination against foreign accents has, however, been discussed mainly using accented English in English-speaking countries. This study…

English television programs have been incorporated within public-school classrooms in western countries for a long time to capture student interest in various subjects. Many researchers favor English programs as a partner inside of classrooms while others hold negative perceptions of the concept. However, there is little research to provide a…

What is considered effective teaching varies across cultures, institutions, and disciplines. Concepts of effective teaching reflect the values and expectations of the educational culture and language in which it occurs. This study examines how participation in a course on intercultural communication affects the observable teaching behaviors of…

This exploratory study investigated the nature and distribution of dual-language preschool teachers' questions across parallel Spanish- and English-medium read-aloud activities. The notions of comprehensible input (Krashen, 1985) and language output (Swain, 1985), along with a reciprocal interaction model of teaching (Cummins, 2000), guided our…

This paper describes one aspect of an ESL teacher's journey, in which her voluntary involvement in a series of science-based professional learning events inspired her to use language-based objectives to develop and teach an integrated unit of work with ESL students. Her willingness to modify her usual pedagogical practice and the inspiration she…

In spite of important differences in some of the resources immigrant parents have to invest in their children, and in immigrant selection rules and settlement policies, there are significant similarities in the relative positions of 4- and 5-year-old children of immigrants in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Children…