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Learning English (learning + english)
Selected AbstractsAge-Related Differences in the Motivation of Learning English as a Foreign Language: Attitudes, Selves, and Motivated Learning BehaviorLANGUAGE LEARNING, Issue 2 2008Judit Kormos Our study describes the motivation for learning English as a foreign language in three distinct learner populations: secondary school pupils, university students, and adult language learners. Questionnaire data were collected from 623 Hungarian students. The main factors affecting students' second language (L2) motivation were language learning attitudes and the Ideal L2 self, which provides empirical support for the main construct of the theory of the L2 Motivational Self-System (Dörnyei, 2005). Models of motivated behavior varied across the three investigated learner groups. For the secondary school pupils, it was interest in English-language cultural products that affected their motivated behavior, whereas international posture as an important predictive variable was only present in the two older age groups. [source] Test-based accountability: Potential benefits and pitfalls of science assessment with student diversityJOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 1 2010Randall D. Penfield Abstract Recent test-based accountability policy in the U.S. has involved annually assessing all students in core subjects and holding schools accountable for adequate progress of all students by implementing sanctions when adequate progress is not met. Despite its potential benefits, basing educational policy on assessments developed for a student population of White, middle- and upper-class, and native speakers of English opens the door for numerous pitfalls when the assessments are applied to minority populations including students of color, low SES, and learning English as a new language. There exists a paradox; while minority students are a primary intended beneficiary of the test-based accountability policy, the assessments used in the policy have been shown to have many shortcomings when applied to these students. This article weighs the benefits and pitfalls that test-based accountability brings for minority students. Resolutions to the pitfalls are discussed, and areas for future research are recommended. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47: 6,24, 2010 [source] Emerging Hispanic English: New dialect formation in the American SouthJOURNAL OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS, Issue 3 2004Walt Wolfram Although stable Hispanic populations have existed in some regions of the United States for centuries, other regions, including the mid-Atlantic South, are just experiencing the emergence of permanent Hispanic communities. This situation offers an ideal opportunity to examine the dynamics of new dialect formation in progress, and the extent to which speakers acquire local dialect traits as they learn English as a second language. We focus on the production of the /ai/ diphthong among adolescents in two emerging Hispanic communities, one in an urban and one in a rural context. Though both English and Spanish have the diphthong /ai/, the Southern regional variant of the benchmark local dialect norm is unglided, thus providing a local dialect alternative. The instrumental analysis of /ai/ shows that there is not pervasive accommodation to the local norm by Hispanic speakers learning English. There is, however, gradient, incremental adjustment of the /ai/, and individual speakers who adopt local cultural values may accommodate to the local dialect pattern. [source] Development of an English as a second language curriculum for hepatitis B virus testing in Chinese Americans,CANCER, Issue S12 2005Gloria D. Coronado Ph.D. Abstract Chinese Americans are at disproportionately high risk of liver cancer. A major risk factor for liver cancer in Asia is infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV): Approximately 80% of liver cancers are linked to HBV, and chronic carriers of HBV are > 100 times more likely to develop liver cancer compared with noncarriers. However, many adults, particularly those who have immigrated to the U.S., remain untested and therefore unvaccinated or unmonitored for the disease. Chinese Americans are mostly foreign born, and more recent arrivals face multiple social and health challenges. Many require special attention from public health professionals because of low levels of acculturation and difficulties learning English. It has long been established that an English as a Second Language (ESL) curriculum can teach immigrant adults and their family's important life skills, such as job training and citizenship. The authors report on their plans to develop and pilot test a culturally appropriate curriculum that will motivate Chinese ESL students to obtain a blood test for the detection of the HBV. Cancer 2005. © 2005 American Cancer Society. [source] | ||||||||||