This article presents an approach to literary texts that develops students' language proficiency, content knowledge, and analytical skills through the interweaving of three content areas--literary analysis, stylistics, and culture--at the beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels of the foreign language curriculum. Consistent with…

Most linguistic processes--acquisition, change, deterioration--take place in and are determined by a complex and multifactorial web of language internal and language external influences. This implies that the impact of each individual factor can only be determined on the basis of a careful consideration of its interplay with all other factors. The…

This study examined how ethnic composition and linguistic acculturation within schools affected the efficacy of a youth substance use prevention model program. Data came from a randomized trial of the "keepin' it REAL" program, using a predominantly Mexican American sample of middle school students in Phoenix, Arizona. Schools were…

Background/Context: English language learner (ELL) students are lagging behind because of the extra challenges they face relative to their peers in acquiring academic English language proficiency, and the added burden of learning content in a language in which they are not proficient. The mandated inclusion of ELL students in the nation's…

In this article, the author shares her experience and her observations as a Roving Scholar of American Studies in Norway through the Norway Fulbright Foundation grant. The author visited upper secondary schools all over Norway, teaching lessons to both students and teachers on topics related to U.S. history, government, culture, and geography. She…

The literature suggests that peer assessment contributes to the development of student learning and promotes ownership of assessment processes. These claims emerge from research conducted primarily in Western contexts. This exploratory paper reports on the perspectives that a class of Hong Kong primary school students and their teachers have on…

Background/Context: How do we account for the persistence of below-average math test score performance among California Hispanics who are fluent in English, as well as Spanish-dominant English learners? Recent studies have attributed the problem to an overly rigid focus on "what works" in curriculum and fluency in English to the…

In 2010, the U.S. Department of Education (the Department) contracted with Synergy Enterprises, Inc. and edCount, LLC, to complete a study titled Language Instruction Educational Programs (LIEPs): Lessons From the Research and Profiles of Promising Programs. This study includes a review of the foundational literature related to LIEPs, case studies…

The challenge of providing authentic experiences and interactions for fostering oral proficiency and motivation in foreign languages is an opportunity for innovation in educational technology and instructional design. Although several recent innovations have received the attention of scholars, empirical investigation and validation is often…

The increasing popularity of paired format in oral testing has engendered legitimate scrutiny of its reliability and validity as compared with the more traditional interviewer-interviewee arrangement. Although characteristics such as the gender, cultural/L1 background, and language proficiency of one's interlocutor likely affects the discourse…

Studies of Mexican and Puerto Rican communities living in the same United States cities suggest that a combination of historical factors and local conditions strongly influence to what extent these two groups interact and form a shared sense of pan-ethnic Latino unity. However, few studies have examined "MexiRican" individuals, those who…

Previous accounts of morphological variability disagree over whether its cause is representational or computational in nature. Under a computational account, variability is confined to production; under a representational account, variability extends to comprehension and is qualitatively similar to variability in production. This article presents…

This article reports on a study that analysed life history accounts of language learning. The key aim of the study was to understand how the experience of language learning was discursively constructed through recourse to particular cultural worlds and narrative strategies. The study contributes to the growing field of research using language…

In this study, we examined the presence of differential item functioning (DIF) among groups of students who were tested in their native language or in a different language when participating in the 1999 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. Data from 18,837 examinees from three countries (Singapore, United States, and Iran) were…

Null direct objects provide a favourable testing ground for grammatical and performance models of argument omission. This article examines both types of models in order to determine which gives a more plausible account of the second language data. The data were collected from second language (L2) learners of Spanish by means of four oral…