Purpose: The Expository Scoring Scheme (ESS) is designed to analyze the macrostructure of descriptions of a favorite game or sport. This pilot study examined inter- and intrarater reliability of the ESS and use of the scale to capture developmental change in elementary school children. Method: Twenty-four children in 2 language groups (monolingual…

This study tested the effect of Spanish-accented speech on sentence comprehension in children with different degrees of Spanish experience. The hypothesis was that earlier acquisition of Spanish would be associated with enhanced comprehension of Spanish-accented speech. Three groups of 5-6-year-old children were tested: monolingual…

Children learning English as an additional language (EAL) often experience lower academic attainment than monolingual peers. In this study, teachers provided ratings of English language proficiency and social, emotional, and behavioral functioning for 782 children with EAL and 6,485 monolingual children in reception year (ages 4-5). Academic…

This article aims to shed light on the question of elitism in CLIL by exploring empirical evidence taken from a large-scale longitudinal investigation based in Spain. To this end, it reports on a quantitative study into the effects of CLIL programmes on the English language attainment of primary and secondary education students in monolingual…

The present study used data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study--Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 to examine whether the relationship between first-grade word-reading and reading-comprehension growth through eighth grade was different for language-minority learners (LMs) versus native English-speaking students (NEs). Among high word…

A comparative lexicogrammatical and logicosemantic systemic functional analysis of two third-grade science curricular units on the topic of "matter" written in Spanish is presented. One of these curricular units, translated from an English textbook, or "mirror text," is used in dual language programs (Spanish-English) in the…

This study investigated the long-term effect of classroom-based input manipulation on children's use of subordination in a story re-telling task; it also explored the role of receptive vocabulary skills and expressive grammatical abilities in predicting the likelihood of priming. During a two-week priming phase, 47 monolingual English-speaking…

This article is a study of "Mosaic"--a piece of multilingual theatre-in-education designed to promote linguistically diverse practices in primary schools in Birmingham, United Kingdom. Focusing on the relatively uncharted territory of applied theatre as a means of promoting multilingualism, and challenging a culture of monolingual…

Very little research has been conducted on the effects of CLIL on L1 competence development. This article compares CLIL and non-CLIL learners' levels of attainment in Spanish Language and Literature in seven public schools in the South of Spain. Learners' verbal intelligence and motivation were previously matched in order to homogenise the sample.…

In bilingualism there are rigorous arguments among researches on the inclusion of second language in early phases of L1 education. While some researchers support such inclusion, others advise that doing so might adversely affect the first language. In the context where this study was conducted (Saudi Arabia), despite the heated debate on…

Reading development in students who are second language learners (SLLs) has been a concern of many educators. It is important to understand reading development in students who are SLLs to effectively support their reading development. The dissertation consists of two studies, presented in two stand-alone manuscripts, that aimed to deepen our…

In this study, the researchers examined how first-grade students initially positioned as struggling readers took up literacy practices to reposition themselves as capable competent readers and part of a literate community of practice over an academic year. Using positive discourse analysis and case study methodology, the researchers documented and…

The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a reading intervention program, Responsiveness to Intervention (RTI), among monolingual and bilingual elementary aged students. Minimal research has been dedicated to children who identify as English Language Learners (ELL) and their response to reading intervention programs compared to…

Many children learning English as an additional language (EAL) show reading comprehension difficulties despite adequate decoding. However, the relationship between early language and reading comprehension in this group is not fully understood. The language and literacy skills of 80 children learning English from diverse language backgrounds and 80…

While multilingualism itself is a widely analyzed topic, a study about multilingualism at German schools abroad is so far unique. This quantitative study investigates the differences in the size of German expressive and receptive vocabulary between monolingual and multilingual students, aged between 5 and 11 years. A cohort of 65 multilingual…