This article presents a case study incorporating English teachers' perspectives into the development of a large-scale international English assessment, the recently developed "TOEFL Junior"® Comprehensive test. It discusses how stakeholder feedback gathered during test development supports the validity argument for score…

The Montessori early childhood classroom provides a seamless web of language experiences. As Montessori teachers, they are mindful of the many ways Practical Life, Sensorial, Geography, Science, and Mathematics lessons contribute to and support Language Arts. Within the Language Arts curriculum itself, there are multiple stages of learning. The…

Purpose: The goal of this research was to examine whether phonological familiarity exerts different effects on novel word learning for familiar versus unfamiliar referents and whether successful word learning is associated with increased second-language experience. Method: Eighty-one adult native English speakers with various levels of Spanish…

What are the effects of experience on subsequent learning? We explored the effects of language-specific word order knowledge on the acquisition of sequential conditional information. Korean and English adults were engaged in a sequence learning task involving three different sets of stimuli: auditory linguistic (nonsense syllables), visual…

This study investigated the relationship between out-of-class L2 use and proficiency gains in learners of English as a second language (ESL) in an intensive English language program. In contrast to previous studies on this topic, which have found weak, non-existent or even inverse relationships between out-of-class language experience and L2…

As English tends to be regarded as a component of basic education, most European countries, Spain amongst them, are issuing legislation to establish the content and language integrated learning (CLIL) approach in educational settings. The article presents instances of the implementation of CLIL in the area of teacher training which stem from a…

"The Hope for Audacity: Public Identity and Equity Action in Education" calls for audacious action from the president and his administration as they attempt to guide educators, policymakers, as well as the general public in thinking critically about education. This book also discusses the role of education faculties in becoming more active agents…

Learning to read can pose a major challenge to students, and much of this challenge is due to the fact that written language is necessarily impoverished when compared to the rich, continuous speech signal. Prosodic elements of language are scarcely represented in written text, and while oral reading prosody has been addressed in the literature…

The current dissertation investigated segmental and prosodic aspects of first- (L1) and second-language (L2) speech production. Forty Korean-speaking adults and children varying in L2 experience (6 months-inexperienced vs. 6 years-experienced) as well as twenty age-matched native English speaking adults and children participated. Experienced…

Could a second language (L2) influence how bilinguals process their native language (L1)? The work described in this dissertation examined this issue focusing on the way bilinguals interpret the meanings of words. Capitalizing on the prevalence of words that can be translated in more than one way across languages (i.e., "translation ambiguity,"…

Despite abundant evidence of malleability in speech production, previous studies of the effects of late second-language learning on first-language production have been limited to advanced learners. This dissertation examines these effects in novice learners, finding that experience in a second language rapidly, and possibly inexorably, affects…

Chinese characters are used in both Chinese and Japanese writing systems. When literate speakers of either language experience problems in finding or understanding words, they often resort to using Chinese characters or "kanji" (i.e., Chinese characters used in Japanese writing) in their talk, a practice known as "brush talk" ("bitan" in Chinese,…

This working paper will explore the usefulness of Cummins' framework relating language proficiency to academic performance (1983) as a reflection and planning tool for continuous improvement of second language learning (SLL) instruction. SLL activities designed for a Language Experience intervention class for seventh and eighth grade English…

This paper will compare the uses of selected formal and informal assessments of English language learners (ELLs) in the Language Experience class [TRANSLANGEXP7(&8)-008] at Kimball Middle School, Illinois School District U-46, Elgin, Illinois, during school year 2007- 2008. See figure 1 (page 14) for a graphic display of these assessments and…

The National Indian Education Association (NIEA) has a long-standing commitment to protecting the cultural and linguistic traditions of Native American students. Towards strengthening these outcomes, they are initiating the development of the National Native Cultural Standards for Education project. To provide background support for future phases…