Fluent reading is essential for successful comprehension. One dimension of reading fluency is reading rate, or reading speed. Because of the importance of reading fluency, fluency development activities should be incorporated into classroom practice. One activity that meets the fluency development conditions proposed by Nation (2007) is speed…

Opportunities for incidental vocabulary acquisition were explored in a 121,000-word corpus of teacher talk addressed to advanced adult learners of English as a second language (ESL) in a communicatively-oriented conversation class. In contrast to previous studies that relied on short excerpts, the corpus contained all of the teacher speech the…

Despite its theoretical appeal and research-based support, task-based language teaching (TBLT) continues to have a somewhat limited influence on actual second language teaching practices in many contexts. This study considers the relationship between teacher education and the broader use of TBLT. It investigates the effects of a…

Previous research fails to find a consistent association between obesity and acculturation for children. We theorize that social isolation shelters children of immigrants from the U.S. "obesiogenic" environment, but this protective effect is offset by immigrant parents' limited capacity to identify and manage this health risk in the United States.…

The purpose of this article is to describe the process and development of English Language Proficiency (ELP) standards and assessment in Ohio and to discuss issues related to alignment. The article addresses the importance of alignment among standards, instruction, and assessment, as well as the effect of alignment on students' academic…

The study reported here examined the evaluation criteria used to assess the proficiency and effectiveness of the language produced in an oral performance test of English conducted in an American university context. Empirical methods were used to analyze qualitatively and quantitatively transcriptions of the Oral English Tests (OET) of 44…

Using a student's native language, either as a medium of instruction or as a scaffolding technique, has been used effectively in many classrooms throughout the U.S. In the past, many schools provided native language instruction to meet the needs of English Language Learners (ELLs). However, with the advent of antibilingual education proposals such…

Publication in international journals has become a prerequisite to PhD graduation. This study thus provides a framework for understanding the learning of writing skills and publishing practices of nonnative English-speaking PhD students by investigating their perceptions of publishing and learning to write for publication. Findings show that these…

This paper argues that the vertical spread of computer-assisted language learning (CALL), i.e., a spread throughout language materials and curricula, makes it difficult to draw a clear distinction between CALL and other language materials. In view of the emphasis that teachers, researchers, and administrators have placed on evaluating CALL, I…

Young students come to world language classrooms with genuine excitement about the possibility of being able to speak a language other than their own. When world language teachers connect second language instruction to students' general education curriculum content, the opportunity presents itself to potentially increase students' ability to speak…

The demands on the early language teacher and the limited lesson time seem to be some of the reasons for the lack of learners' engagement in interpersonal communication in early language programs. Although the research on the role of the classroom teacher in early language programs is scarce, there is evidence that the classroom teacher can play a…

This research explores what constitutes an educational tool for students in the Sultanate of Oman, using a quantitative questionnaire with face-to-face semi-structured interviews. Students and teachers at Nizwa College of Technology and Salalah College of Technology participated in the study. Educational tools are widely used as part of…

This study investigated the relationship between self-efficacy and imposter phenomenon and their effects on EFL learners' writing ability. Participants were 94 male and female university students. The aim was to find out how self-efficacy and imposter phenomenon would be related, how these personal factors would relate to writing ability, and…

This paper looked into the interplay between language and culture based on the metatext categories utilized by the writers in three speech communities: Philippines, Iran, and Taiwan. Specifically, it answered the following subproblems: (1) What metatext categories exist in the results-and-discussion section of ESL/EFL research articles written in…

This case study analyzed the ways a native Spanish speaker of high-beginning English proficiency and his teacher negotiated an extended writing task in a tenth-grade mainstream humanities course. An "interactional histories" analysis demonstrated the teacher's pedagogical and conversational moves to adapt the academic task and the moves…