Increased access to post-secondary education is necessary to advance the global knowledge society. Recognition of the benefits of higher education for individuals and their communities and nations has resulted in a large demand for higher education which institutions are finding difficult to fulfill due to adherence to traditional practices,…

This document describes the Minnesota No Child Left Behind (NCLB) calculation as it relates to measuring Title III districts for Annual Measurable Achievement Objectives (AMAO). In 2012, a new assessment was used to measure language proficiency skills for English Learners. New AMAO targets were created, and new values for determining individual…

Considering the contradictory research on explicit teaching of suprasegmentals, the present study aims to investigate the effects of explicit instruction of L2 English learners' perception of prosodically ambiguous intonation patterns, as well as the possible effects of reported musical familiarity on intonation acquisition. A control group and a…

The number of English language learners has grown in the Northeast & Islands Region over the past decade. While the total student population shrank 3.5 percent between 2001/02 and 2009/10, the population of English language learner students grew 7.6 percent and now constitutes 6.1 percent of students in the region, up from 5.5 percent in…

The Migrant Education Program (MEP) is authorized under Title I of the "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001" (NCLB). Title I states that the purpose of the MEP is to assist states in efforts to meet the special needs of migrant students. The purpose of this report was to evaluate the impact of the migrant education program on students'…

This qualitative study examined the impact of a six-step framework for work-specific vocabulary instruction in adult English language learners (ELLs). Guided by research in English as a second language (ESL) methodology and the transactional theory, the researchers sought to unveil how these processes supported the acquisition and application of…

The author collaborated with teachers and a English Language Learners (ELL) specialist at an elementary school that had a high percentage of ELLs, primarily from Spanish-speaking heritage, where teachers were in the early stages of exploring uses of English Language Proficiency (ELP) standards for English Language Development (ELD) (Oregon…

In the current study, explicit vocabulary learning strategy instruction was integrated into an EFL curriculum to investigate its effects on learners' vocabulary acquisition. A total of 180 EFL learners enrolled in the freshmen English program at a university in Taiwan participated in the study. The participants were guided to explore and practice…

This paper reports on a focused investigation into the immediate effects of oral narrative task repetition by two adult EFL learners of intermediate and high proficiency. Two participants performed a narrative speaking task after watching a cartoon video clip and repeated their performance three times, followed by a retrospective report in an…

This study builds on previous work exploring reading and listening lexical thresholds (Nation, 2006; Laufer & Ravenhorst-Kalovski, 2010; Schmitt, Jiang, & Grabe, 2011) in order to investigate productive vocabulary targets that mark successful entry-level undergraduate writing. Papers that passed the Effective Writing Test (EWT) were chosen…

This paper presents results from a project investigating over ninety learners of Arabic who studied abroad in the Arab world within the last few years. It explores their linguistic and cultural experiences during their time abroad. One of the most important issues in this paper is that of the development of intercultural competence on study abroad…

Although a variety of research has investigated the use and benefits of home language in school settings, research on using translation to support school learning is scarce. With the goal of designing a differentiated and culturally relevant strategy that supports the reading of bilingual students, we worked with seventh-grade students in pull-out…

The present study analyses bilingual conversations taking place in binational families living in the UK. The focus is on two Polish/English stepfamilies, where the Polish mothers' concern with preserving and developing their children's linguistic and cultural identity collides with the English partner's limited knowledge of Polish. While the paper…

As various means of computer mediated communication (CMC) have been incorporated within language classrooms over the past two decades, it has become important to critically understand whether, to which extent, and under what contextual factors, a particular type of CMC is more effective than other modes of communication. This study examined the…

This article advocates the use of the target language at all times in the classroom at all levels of language instruction. While addressed specifically to middle school and high school teachers, the article suggests an approach to language instruction that can be implemented for students of all ages. After recounting how the author's experience…