Recent currents in language learning research highlight the social and emergent aspects of second language (L2) development and recognize that learners need opportunities for interaction in meaningful contexts supported by explicit attention to language itself. These perspectives suggest new ways of conceptualizing the challenges faced by children…

Rhymes and poems can be a natural starting point for young children as they experience the world and learn to understand spoken, written, and visual languages. Poetry contains highly patterned, predictable language that has unique potential to promote memorable and pleasurable experiences in preschool, kindergarten, and primary classrooms. As…

An experiment examined whether metalinguistic awareness involving the detection of semantic ambiguity can be taught, and whether this instruction improves students' reading comprehension. Lower SES third graders from a variety of cultural backgrounds (M = 8 yr. 7 mo., N = 46) were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. Those receiving…

A dual immersion program in Chinese and English at the 3e International School in Beijing is helping children become fluent in both languages, even though many students spoke neither language when they entered the school. Children enter the program as young as two years old. Studies indicate that bilingual children have higher levels of cognitive…

This study examined 120 Victorian preservice and inservice teachers' ability to implement evidence-based, early literacy instruction by examining whether teachers possessed positive perceptions of explicit instruction in sound-letter relationships, and a proficient knowledge of language structure. Teachers' confidence in teaching students of known…

This article is concerned with knowledge about language in the English classroom in Scotland, with a particular emphasis on national educational policy. The article provides a discussion of the main national guidelines on English Language teaching in the primary and early secondary years, as well as some observations on the place of knowledge…

This article focuses on some of the key issues that need to be addressed by 2010 if MLPS in England is going to work. The aims of MLPS need defining as educational, not instrumental; the KS1/2 experience has to be enjoyable and rewarding: an apprenticeship in learning how to learn a language, providing the tools for later learning and raising…

The ultimate goal of reading is to construct text meaning based on visually encoded information. Essentially, it entails converting print into language and then to the message intended by the author. It is hardly accidental, therefore, that, in all languages, reading builds on oral language competence and that learning to read uniformly requires…

This paper will present an analysis of the notion of cultural and linguistic diversity in the new curriculum for primary schools in France (MEN, 2003). First, it will explain how this notion is linked both to a wider choice of languages and to the teaching of one foreign or regional language only. We shall argue that, despite the wide theoretical…

This paper aims to shed light on the explicit-implicit paradigm contention in connection with the foreign language area of English spelling. To this end, it frames the subject against the backdrop of the prolonged dispute between implicit, whole language, top-down, or whole-to-part approaches and explicit, traditional, bottom-up, or part-to-whole…