Phonological and morphological awareness and its correlation with reading punctuated and non-punctuated words in Arabic as a first language were examined, as well as its transfer to Hebrew as a second language. Research participants were 30 fourth grade pupils. Phonological awareness was examined by phonological decoding of actual and meaningless…

Existing research on the impact of bilingualism on metalinguistic development has concentrated on the development of phonological awareness. The present study extended the scope of existing research by focusing on morphological awareness, an aspect of metalinguistic awareness that becomes increasingly important beyond the initial phase of literacy…

The present paper explores and compares the receptive vocabulary sizes of two groups of learners of different native languages. One of the most widely used vocabulary size tests is the Vocabulary Levels Test designed by Nation. Some reservations have been raised in relation to the adequacy of the Vocabulary Levels Test to estimate the vocabulary…

Students of Southeast Asian Heritage Learning Chinese (SSAHLC) in Taiwan have frequently demonstrated difficulty with traditional Chinese (a graphical character) radical recognition due to their limited exposure to the written language form since childhood. In this study, we designed a Chinese radical learning game (CRLG), which adopted a drill…

This paper describes the development of an educational game, named My-Pet-Shop, to enhance young children's learning of English vocabulary. The educational game is underpinned by an application-driven model, which consists of three components: application scenario, subject learning, and learning regulation. An empirical study is further conducted…

Foreign language anxiety (FLA) has been mainly associated with adult language learners. Although FLA forms a serious problem in the foreign language learning process for all learners, the effects of FLA on children have been mainly overlooked. The underlying reason is that there is a lack of an appropriate measurement tool for FLA among children.…

The goal of this short-term longitudinal study was to identify how stress impacts later literacy achievement via the mediators of grit and emotional engagement. Study design included three time-points with students in 3rd through 5th grades who were low-income, dual language learners in the US (N = 142; 54% female; 75% Latina/o; M = 9.47 years…

Recent reports indicated that English Language Learners (ELLs) comprised about 5 million students who attended school in the United States this past year. The general problem was that male Hispanic ELL students are retained at a higher rate than their male counterparts in many states in the United States. The researcher specifically chose the…

This research is conducted to examine novice ELT teachers' perspective on the possible motives behind young learners' problem behaviours in English classes. The gender of ELT teachers have been also considered in order to investigate whether there is a difference between the perception of male and female teachers on the leading causes of problem…

Previous research suggests that enhanced cognitive and metacognitive skills are achieved when translanguaging techniques are applied in a multilingual classroom. This paper presents findings on the effects of translanguaging techniques on teaching grade 4 learners how to apply relevant background knowledge when drawing inferences during reading.…

Both for the first language (L1) and for all additional languages (L2 or L3), grammatical knowledge plays a vital role in understanding texts (e.g., Grabe, 2005). However, little is known about the development and interaction of grammar and reading comprehension in beginning foreign language learning, especially with respect to children with a…

A quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest, non-equivalent control group design was used to examine the effect of a mobile gamification application on third and fourth grade students' Spanish language achievement and student academic self-efficacy. In this study, the treatment group's Spanish language instruction was through the use of…

Studies show that morphological and lexical awareness is a particularly important variable for reading comprehension after the primary school years. Research on L1 students' reading and writing competence has revealed correlations between reading and writing with regard to metalinguistic awareness, specifically also with regard to the subtypes:…

This study examines the effects of four types of reading comprehension questions--immediate, non-immediate, summary, and unanswerable questions--that linguistically diverse and predominantly low-income parents asked their fourth graders on children's text retellings. One-hundred-twenty (N = 120) parent and child dyads participated in a home visit…

Despite the fact that Singaporean students consistently perform well in literacy tests such as the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, employers have reported that Singaporean employees in general lack confidence in articulating their views in the workplace. This may be attributed to the practice of teacher-fronted and monologic…