This pamphlet explains the U.S. Department of Education's mission to ensure equal access to education and promote educational excellence. The Office of English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement, and Academic Achievement for Limited English Proficient Students (OELA) provides national leadership in promoting English language proficiency…

This paper examines the demographic and socioeconomic patterns of 7 Mexican-origin and U.S.-born subgroups living in 13 midwestern states in 1990. Mexican-born immigrants are categorized into five subgroups based on the period of U.S. entry: pre-1965, 1965-74, 1975-81, 1982-86, and 1987-90. U.S.-born Mexican Americans (as well as those born abroad…

Quantitative educational research with ethnic minorities has a long history, characterized by assumptions that are still operative, such as the assumption that the white male is the standard against which other groups should be compared. It has also been assumed that assessment instruments are applicable across all groups, and that sources of…

This study compared the performance of English language learners and native speakers of English on mathematics word problems from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests and investigated whether modifying the linguistic structures in the test items affected student test performance. The study began with the analysis of…

Generally, immersion is carried out in circumstances where children who speak the majority language are taught the minority language. In this way, the security of the language learners is secured in intensive teaching. In Pietarsaari, Finland, an experiment on language immersion has been started, in which minority Finnish children with a…

The purpose of this research is to examine the detailed components of Japanese students' English speaking ability in terms of communicative competence by using an oral proficiency test based on Bachman's Communicative Language Ability model (included in an appendix). Eighty college students were tested on four tasks--speech making, visual material…

The study investigated linguistic, cultural, and attitudinal changes in public school teachers during time spent in a study abroad setting in Spain, noting the effect of their conducting ethnographic interviews while in Spain on those changes. The study also looked at problems teachers experienced while studying abroad. Data from pretests and…

This publication is intended for parents, teachers, and anyone in the wider community who has an interest in language, language acquisition, and second language learning; bilingual and multilingual education; bilingualism; language, culture, and society; language and power; and literacy. Extensive long-term research was conducted on a number of…

A study investigated the utility of a measure for assessing the writing apprehension of Japanese students of English as a second language. The Daly-Miller questionnaire, designed to measure writing apprehension, was translated into Japanese and administered to 687 first- and second-year students of English at a Japanese junior college. Results…

This paper describes the various barriers to comprehension that learners may encounter when viewing feature films in a second language. Two clusters of interfacing factors that may contribute to comprehension hot spots emerged from a quantitative analysis of problems noted in student logbooks. One cluster had a strong acoustic basis, whereas the…

An evaluation was conducted to determine if there were any statistically significant, educationally meaningful, and longitudinally consistent effects on student achievement of the Ten Schools Program (TSP) after controlling for the effects of socioeconomic status and level of English proficiency. The TSP was designed to improve the academic…

This paper examines the effectiveness of process writing instruction in English as a second language to foster contextualized situated learning of adverbial clauses of contrast (e.g., "although, even though, however, nevertheless, in spite of, despite, on the other hand"), as demonstrated in a group of six Brazilian upper-intermediate…

A variety of methods for testing students' Russian language proficiency before, during, and after study in the Soviet Union are compared and discussed, including U.S. government-developed and other standardized examinations, interviews versus written methods, pretests-posttests, and testing emphases and problems. (MSE)

The predictive validity of several mathematics and language variables relative to criteria of grade point average and word problem-solving skills for 60 bilingual Hispanic technical students is investigated. Examination of standardized college admission criteria is urged. Revealed is a disparity in academic performance between bilingual and…

Presents results of a survey undertaken to determine (1) the situations in which Dutch students (secondary and higher education level) and workers would be required to use French, German, and English, either for personal or professional tasks; and (2) what gaps existed in actual proficiency in these languages. (AM)