This longitudinal case study examines reading difficulties identified in Grade 2 and Grade 6 national assessment test (NAT) scores in relation to Grade 9 NAT in Swedish (L1) and English (L2). A norm-referenced screening was used in Grade 2 to assess word reading and reading comprehension. In line with the simple view of reading, four subgroups…

Reading to Learn (R2L) is an instructional approach that leads students from aided to independent creation of meaning in reading and writing. The approach uses whole texts as the point of departure for instruction. This case study explored how R2L promoted ninth graders' comprehension of explanation texts in EFL during six lessons and students'…

The current article examined educational achievement at lower-secondary level in Sweden (Grade 9), using grades and national test results (NTR) as the dependent variables. Linear regressions and bivariate correlations indicated that the proportion of highly-educated individuals in each municipality was positively associated with grades and NTR and…

Given the increasing emphasis of communicative competence in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts and the lack of validation research on speaking assessments for adolescent EFL learners, in the current study we examined the validity of the TOEFL Junior® speaking test, a relatively new speaking assessment developed by Educational Testing…

Visualisation plays a critical role in the teaching and learning of mathematics word problems. It is an essential tool for enabling learners to create meaningful mental pictures necessary for solving mathematical problems. Appropriate visualisation requires good reading skills, English proficiency and an understanding of mathematical vocabulary,…

Research documents how transnational youth leverage literacy practices to maintain global connections, identity, and self-worth within learning environments that often fail to honor their cultural and linguistic repertoires. This article extends this research by focusing on the unique practices, experiences, and perspectives of secondary newcomer…

The paper reports on the results of a case study of a Year 9 class in a multilingual urban school. The study investigates issues of negotiation, accessibility and (legitimacy of) rights in the classroom's dominant discourse and more specifically the ways in which the Year 9 students of a Private English School in Cyprus negotiate their identity…

This study was an attempt to assess how learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) improved their speaking fluency in a task-based language teaching (TBLT) approach used with ninth-grade learners at PUNIV-Cazenga, a high school in Luanda. In a case study design that used picture-description tasks, learners' speeches were audio recorded before…

In such a rapidly developing world, it has been inevitable to integrate some modern assessment approaches and tools into English teaching. Hence, several up to date Formative Assessment Tools have been used by teachers during the learning process to modify teaching and learning activities by means of acquiring qualitative feedback. Blogs or…

Classrooms tend to be absolute spaces, places where fluidity is rejected and nearly everything--from people, to ideas, to practices and policies--is viewed and organized through binary logic. Because binary logic is implicitly accepted as the natural order in schools and the structures resulting from it are highly unmalleable, individuals who…

This article reports a case study conducted at a school in Bogotá. It was based on constructivist and poststructuralist frameworks that viewed gender positioning as a social construction in foreign language learning contexts (Baxter, 2003; Sunderland, 1992; Tannen, 1996). Aiming to understand how ninth grade gender positioning is constructed, and…

This article describes an adolescent's development of multiliterate and multilingual writing practices and identities. It further explores how a literacy teacher enacted a writing pedagogy of multiliteracies that assisted the youth in building writing practices and identities. Data include interviews of the young woman and her teacher, classroom…

Schools are often encouraged to facilitate extra-curricular learning within their own premises. This study addresses the potential of social networking sites (SNS) for supporting such out-of-class study. Given concerns that learning on these sites may happen at a surface level, we adopted self-determination theory for designing a social networking…

Transnational youth represent an increasing demographic in societies around the world. This circumstance has amplified the need to understand how youths' language and literacy repertoires are shaped by transnational life. In response, this article presents a case study of a Mexican adolescent girl who immigrated to the United States and continued…

Research suggests that language-based activities should be an integral part of science teaching and learning and that these are even more important in minority-language contexts. The present cross-case study investigates how literacy is enacted in francophone science classrooms. Three francophone teachers were observed while they taught Grade 9…