Community colleges may face challenges supporting the unique needs of language minority (LM) students whose primary language is not English. Florida provides a unique context for examining whether LM students who are considered underprepared for college-level coursework benefit more from traditional developmental education programs in reading and…

This qualitative case study explored the perspectives of school administrators on implementing structured English immersion (SEI) and dual-language bilingual education (DLBE) programs serving emergent bilingual learners at one urban Arizona elementary school. Using a sociocultural policy perspective, I analyzed findings from a series of interviews…

This study sets out to investigate possible effects of previously learned languages on the acquisition of English as a third language by examining six prepositions (in, on, at, behind, over, to) when they denote spatial relations. Two picture description tasks were employed to find out which of the two known languages (L1 and/or L2) is the major…

Entrance to prestigious four-year colleges in South Korea depends heavily on secondary school curricula and scoring high enough on the university entrance exam known as the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT). The current national policy has elevated English to the same level of importance as math and Korean on the CSAT. Private English…

A large amount of literature exists on how native speakers derive and process pragmatic inferences, yet few studies have examined the issue in second language learners, despite a controversial debate of second language (L2) ultimate attainment of phenomena situated at external interfaces. This study contributes to the debate on the integration of…

This paper examined to what extent causal explanation speaking tasks (CESTs) are cognitively appropriate for assessing young language learners' (YLLs) L2 speaking. Ninety-six YLLs (48 from Grade 4 and 6 each) in China performed two CESTs in both L1 (Chinese) and L2 (English). They also completed receptive and productive L2 vocabulary size tests.…

The aim of this article is to improve and develop students' critical thinking, as well as their linguistics skills, by making use of the CLIL approach. Focusing on relevant topics in today's society, such as the voting system, is an interesting opportunity not only to motivate students' learning, but also to be aware of the world they live in. The…

While some researchers claim that the use of the first language (L1) in second language (L2) classrooms should be discouraged since they say that success in learning an L2 is heavily determined by the maximum exposure to it, but others argue that the use of L1 is beneficial particularly in EFL classrooms. This study was conducted to investigate…

Despite the important role emotions play in affecting second/foreign language (L2) learners' cognition, such as their learning processes, few empirical studies have tried to find out how emotions affect the four main skills (i.e., listening, speaking, reading, and writing). In order to fill this gap, the present study aims to investigate the…

Skills training in the informal economy, known as informal apprenticeship, caters to the skills needs of millions of young people in the Global South. While it predates the development of formal Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) systems, it was not until the 'discovery' of the informal economy in the 1970s that attention was…

This paper examines the enactment of critical literacy pedagogy in secondary English language teaching in the face of globalisation. This qualitative case study signals that global citizenship education (GCE) and English as a foreign language (EFL) teaching can converge through offering equitable and globally contextualised learning opportunities.…

The purpose of the present study was to investigate if following data-driven learning (DDL) to raise the learners' awareness of discourse organizers through concordancing improves their comprehension of English academic lectures. To address this issue, the current study adopted a quasi-experimental (comparison group, pretest-posttest) design. 96…

Drawing upon Bourdieu's concept of capital, this article examines the enactment of the "Programa Nacional de Bilingüismo" (National Bilingual Program), a policy that aims to provide Colombian students equal opportunities to learn English. In this exploratory, sequential mixed-methods study, data were collected from teachers and students…

English learners (ELs) comprise approximately 10% of kindergarten to Grade 12 students in US public schools, with about 15% of ELs identified as having disabilities. English language proficiency (ELP) assessments must adhere to universal design principles and incorporate universal tools, designed to increase accessibility for all ELs, including…

Young people today face an uncertain future. English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers in state education are investing their expertise in Online Community Projects (OCPs) as a digital mediation tool to help their students acquire intercultural awareness and experiment with new uses for technology. This qualitative study employs analytic…