Validity, reliability and item analysis are critical to the process of evaluating the quality of an educational measurement. The present study evaluates the quality of an assessment constructed to measure elementary school student's achievement in English. In this study, the survey model of descriptive research was used as a research method.…

In response to the need to cultivate pre-service Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) teachers' information and communication technology (ICT) competency in online synchronous environments, this research adopted a three-stage cyclical model named "cooperation-based cognition, action, and reflection" (CoCAR). The model was implemented in an 18-week…

In this dissertation I aim to advance political narrative theory by exploring the use of political narrative on Facebook and the possibility for Facebook to be used among Palestinian youth for political change. To examine the concepts of political narrative and political change, I developed a model for political change based on the changing…

The integration of emerging technologies in higher education presents a new set of challenges and opportunities for educators. With a growing need for customized lesson plans in online education, educators are rethinking the design and development of their learning environments. "Utilizing Virtual and Personal Learning Environments for…

It is predicted that Hispanic school-aged children will outnumber non-Hispanic white students in public schools by 2050 (Wolf, Herman, & Dietel, 2010). While the number of Latino English language learners (ELLs) continues to grow, their educational achievement remains problematic. Data reveal that ELL dropout, mobility, and poverty rates are…

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. Currently, CHBP is only implemented for native Vietnamese speakers at one campus,…

Research in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) has been done to ascertain the effectiveness of visual input enhancement (VIE) on grammar learning. However, one issue remains unexplored: the effects of VIE density on grammar learning. This paper presents a research proposal to investigate the effects of the density of VIE on English…

It is a good practice to try to understand matters at hand by first stepping back and adopting an historical perspective, which I will begin this review by doing. Next, I will take up the challenges that each of the authors in the articles in this volume has presented for the study of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) in second language…

Two recent books provide varied resources for exploring ethical issues in the social sciences. Reflection on ethical issues aims to sensitize scholars to a range of consequences of their research, and to scholars' responsibilities to their discipline, their colleagues, and the public. This review article assesses the utility of these texts (and of…

This study explores the use of phrasal verbs in English language documents of the European Union (EU) as part of a larger-scale project examining the use of English in EU texts from various aspects including lexical, lexico-grammatical and textual features. Phrasal verbs, known to represent one of the most difficult aspects of learning English,…

For years, phoneticians have tried to simplify pronunciation for EFL/ESL learners. Some have identified four degrees of primary, secondary, tertiary, and weak stress, and others only three degrees: primary, secondary, and weak. Still others have concentrated on two stress levels: accented versus unaccented, or stressed versus unstressed (Bowen,…

A key aspect of the acquisition of grammar for second language learners involves learning how to make appropriate connections between grammatical forms and the meanings which they typically signal. We argue that learning form/function mappings involves three interrelated principles. The first is the Given-to-New Principle, where existing world…

Community building is an important, if not essential, element of adult English as a second language (ESL) learning. Communities, whether civic, work, religious, or identity-based, are the contexts within which people cease to be alone and become connected with others. Language is the main tool for communicating with others in communities. For…

The use of corpus-based findings in order to inform L2 teaching materials have been emphasized by many researchers owing to the fact that the studies of authentic texts have revealed some inconsistencies between the use of grammatical structures in corpora, and those found in language textbooks that are based purely on hunch. Therefore, by…

The pressing need for English oral communication skills in multifarious contexts today is compelling impetus behind the large number of studies done on oral proficiency interviewing. Moreover, given the recently articulated concerns with the fairness and social dimension of such interviews, parallel concerns have been raised as to how most fairly…