In Spring semester 2006, we conducted a study with 50 learners of German to investigate the use of a new measure (Cardenas-Claros, 2005) for research on the field independent/dependent (FID) cognitive style and CALL use. After the measure was administered, students worked on a CALL program for German that logs interaction. This paper reports the…

Background/Context: According to U.S. Census figures, 11 million elementary and secondary students of immigrant families were enrolled in the public schools in October 2005, representing 20% of all students, and this figure is expected to grow in the coming years. Most of these students enter school as English learners (ELs), and most ELs have…

The objective of language studies in Finnish polytechnics is to provide the student with language and communication skills which meet the needs of working life and the student's professional development in future. To ensure high quality and to provide uniformity in foreign language education in Rectors' Conference of Finnish Polytechnics has given…

Although numerous English language proficiency (ELP) measures currently exist, many were developed prior to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). These pre-NCLB measures typically focused on social language proficiency, whereas post-NCLB measures are linked to ELP standards and focus on academic language proficiency (ALP). ELP measures are…

The purpose of this study was to investigate relationships between grade level, perceptual learning style preferences, and language learning strategies among Taiwanese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students in grades 7 through 9. Three hundred and ninety junior high school students participated in this study. The instruments for data…

Online learning can play an important role in engaging language learners and fostering autonomy. The LondonMet e-pack, which provides online interactive language learning materials, is used as a case study to illustrate some of the theoretical and practical issues faced by those implementing online language learning programmes. This article begins…

Although a number of studies have reported on the positive effects of Internet chats in the second language classroom, to the best of my knowledge no studies to date have examined the effect of text-based chats on oral fluency development. This exploratory study addressed the above question by examining the oral fluency development of 34 English…

The paper presents preliminary findings of a project which investigated whether learner background, in terms of instruction mode (i.e., school or intensive first-year course at university) and first language (i.e., character based or non-character based), has an impact on the development of writing skills in Japanese as a second language (JSL).…

Purpose: This study set out to investigate pupils' evaluations of their academic abilities in different school subjects and their ratings of their potential for improving their performance in those school subjects. Sample: Twenty-eight pupils from the third grade (approximately age nine) and 30 pupils from the sixth grade (approximately age 12) in…

The purpose of this study was to examine the development of English reading achievement among English Language Learners (ELLs) and to determine whether the time that an ELL's family was in the United States and the type of native language spoken affected their reading development. Participants were 300 third-grade ELLs from two different native…

This study indicates that the social self-efficacy of 203 Chinese and Taiwanese international students was significantly higher when they were asked to consider their interactions among fellow native language speakers than when they were asked to imagine themselves interacting in English-speaking settings. And in fact, the social self-efficacy of…

Singapore's officially bilingual education policy, in which the majority of children are schooled through a non-native medium with their "Mother Tongue" (an ethnic heritage language that is not necessarily spoken in the home) as a single school subject only, has resulted in dramatic language shifts in the population and high academic…

From 1998 to 2008, voters in California, Arizona, and Massachusetts passed anti-bilingual education ballot initiatives that required English-only instruction for the vast majority of the states' English language learners. The contentious political discourse leading up to the votes largely ignored the research on best practices for educating…

The shifts underway in contemporary social conditions call for a new alignment between the specializations constituting English Studies: namely, literature, applied linguistics, and rhetoric and composition. Postcolonial social movements have generated new language, textual, and literary practices. These developments bring to the fore practices…

The fact that EFL literacy in Indonesia is still low led me to conduct this study to cultivate reading habits and increase literacy skills of young learners. Using the 3-Ls--libraries, literature, and literacy--as an instructional model, the study involved five methods: Informational Text Structures; Online Resources; Partnership with Librarians;…