The internationalisation of educational trajectories has emerged as a new form of cultural capital in education systems. Research suggests that the 'international capital' offered by language enrichment programs has become appropriated primarily by middle- and upper-class families investing in new forms of educational distinction. However, little…

Do learners of a second language (L2) need frequent contact with native speakers of that language in order to master its phonology? What if they hear audio recordings of native speakers and receive immediate corrective feedback about their perception? We used a randomized controlled experiment with 135 Chinese speakers (with English as their L2)…

Dual language (DL) programs propose to be vehicles of social justice and transformation by valuing an additional language other than the dominant one in a society and thereby contesting language hierarchies and the subordination of those who speak/use a non-dominant language (Flores, Flores, Educational Policy 30:13-38, 2016; Menken and García,…

This study aims to investigate the effects of dynamic assessment on improving ELT learners of English as a foreign language at a large state university. The researchers followed the pre-test-treatment--post-test procedure in the study. The test type used in the assessment procedures was 'Retelling Story Test' type in which learners were provided…

The present study, framed from a critical and transformative approach to teacher education, aims to investigate whether language portraits (Prasad, 2010)--the mapping of one's language and cultural make-up on a body template--can help improve student teachers' self-understanding about language and identities and can foster critical reflection…

While language learners and teachers have long known that individual differences (IDs) among students result in differential learning, we still do not know how traditional ID variables interact or the specific impact each one has on language learning. The present study proposes that instead of looking at isolated variables, researchers should…

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 interpretation…

This article reviews the issue of compulsory English in the Asia-Pacific region and examines the English component of a single-site exploratory study of multilingualism in a disadvantaged ethnic minority (DEM) community of Northeast Thailand. The concept of ethnolinguistic vitality was used as a framework for an analysis of community language…

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…

This study investigates second language (L2) development of Spanish verbal morphology, subject omissions, and subject-verb (SV) inversions by learners in two different proficiency levels and learning contexts. Oral narratives from 40 L2 learners at the intermediate and advanced levels, both at home and in a study abroad (SA) program, were examined…

The COLT (Community and Lesser Taught Languages) project is a consortium of five UK universities, working with various other regional organisations to set up replicable projects and structures to promote languages in North West England. It received funding under the UK's national "Routes into Languages" initiative. One objective was to…

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…

Study abroad (SA) is one of the flagship offerings among United States higher education institutions. Approximately 220,000 students studied abroad in the 2005/2006 academic year, 52.8% of whom studied on programs that lasted eight weeks or less. The effect of these short-term programs on second language development has been little investigated,…

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…

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,…