Due to the detrimental effects of apartheid on the South African learning environment the implementation of language policies aimed at fostering multilingual and multicultural education to attain educational equity are rendered impractical (DoE, 1995; de Wet, 2002; Pretorius, 2002b). As a result many L2 learners in English medium school are struggling to reach their academic potential due to their lack of cognitive academic English language proficiency. This study aimed to analyse the effects of L1 and L2 reading ability for high school learners’ who were exposed to a reading intervention over a two year period, compared with those who did not experience the intervention. The results indicated that although learners’ improved in their performance on measures of comprehension and vocabulary over time, those who were exposed to the additional experience of a reading intervention did not improve to a significantly greater extent than those who did not take part in the reading intervention. Furthermore, the reading intervention did not serve to significantly narrow the gap in reading ability between L1 and L2 learners. Reasons for the results, limitations to the study, recommendations for future research, and implications for the South African learning context are discussed.

<p>Applying Kramsch?s (2012) notion of the multilingual learner as a subjective being, this study explores how South Korean elementary students construct their investment (Norton Peirce, 1995) in EFL learning in relation to their economic, social, and cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1986; Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977) as these emerge in their interactional patterns in their EFL classroom. Also, it explores how students perceive the introduction of student-centered instructional strategies and how they construct their investment in EFL learning before and after the introduction of these strategies. The setting for the study was a sixth-grade classroom in a public elementary school located in the central district of a major South Korean metropolitan area. Of the twenty-two EFL learners in the class, ten were selected as participants in the study, and of these, three were chosen as focal students on the basis of their status as low-achieving learners. Data collection methods included ethnographic classroom observations, non-structured interviews with the learners, and their writing and drawing artifacts. For data analysis, thematic coding was employed to generate codes based on two interviews with each learner, which were then categorized to generate themes (Salda?a, 2016). Three principal findings emerged: 1) learners? EFL proficiency, peer relations, parental linguistic support, and linguistic support outside of the school provided significant forms of economic, social, and cultural capital in the EFL classroom; 2) the learners? economic, social, and cultural capital played important roles in their linguistic achievement, but were not as relevant to their perceptions of and attitudes toward their EFL learning; and 3) the students reported that student-centered instructional strategies helped them to acquire self-confidence, strong resolve to learn English, and positive attitudes towards EFL learning. The instructional strategies appeared to be particularly effective in promoting the construction of investment by students with relatively low levels of social, economic and cultural capital. The study concludes that short-term applications of student-centered instructional strategies appear to provide some benefits to students who struggle with EFL learning. Implications include recommendations for further research into short-term and long-term applications of student-centered instructional strategies and their relationship to elementary students? construction of investment.

<p> The purpose of this grounded theory research study was to better understand the experiences of emergent bilingual Cape Verdean Middle School students as they navigate internal and external borderlands. This study was conducted in an urban middle school in New England. Nine female, emergent bilingual Cape Verdean middle school students participated in this study. This study was also completed with the assistance of the school district&rsquo;s middle school language acquisition coach. The participants contributed to student surveys, focus group discussions, participant observations and member checking. All data was analyzed using coding and grounded theory, which lead to development of theoretical constructs. </p><p> This study documents some EB students&rsquo; experiences and feelings pertaining to language, as well as their cultural, social, and linguistic identities while they navigate different linguistic and social worlds. In addition, this study documents how ideologies of linguistic superiority in different worlds or spaces can affect EB students&rsquo; sense of identity and connections to others. The evidence provided in this study is useful to help teachers, administrators, and anyone else involved in education to better understand some realities and challenges many EB students face, as well as how facing these challenges and differences can affect student&rsquo;s sense of self, linguistic, and cultural identities. This study concludes that it is necessary for schools to work from a to create linguistic democracies. </p><p>

The problem of this study was to determine if differences exist in the self-concept scores between Anglo children and Chicano children. A secondary problem was to determine the level of correlation between self concept scores and academic averages. The Martinek-Zaichkowsky Self Concept Scale for Children was used to determine self concept scores and grade point averages reported by the students' classroom teachers were used for the academic averages. The findings of the study warranted the following conclusions: (1) Anglo, first grade children have a significantly higher total self concept than do Chicano, first grade children. (2) Chicano, third grade children have a significantly higher total self concept than do Anglo, third grade children. (3) No significant differences exist between total self concept scores of Anglo, sixth grade children as compared to those of Chicano, sixth grade children. (4) No significant differences exist between total self concept scores of Anglo, first grade children as compared to those of Anglo, sixth grade children. (5) No significant differences exist between total self concept scores of Chicano, first grade children as compared to those of Chicano, sixth grade children. (6) Significant, positive correlations between total self concept and total academic average were found only at the first and sixth grade levels for Chicano children.

<p>Offering basic education is the greatest investment the world can make in its future. Basic education improves live opportunity for people and also give them a chance to form a better life for them selves. Too many of Peru’s inhabitants live in extreme poverty and education could help the country improve this situation. In addition, in the rural areas of Peru a lot of people speak another language than Spanish as their mother tongue. The purpose of this thesis is to get a more profound knowledge about matters concerning Bilingual Intercultural Education in Peru.</p><p>The research question has been what issues can be found, involving EBI education in Peru; opportunities and challenges? I have researched this through interviews with people working in the rural areas combined with a literature study. I visited schools in the area of Cusco and Anchonga. In Cusco the school did not have EBI education and in Anchonga the visited school did have. Some of the findings made are that it is important for the people involved such as parents, principals and teachers to be supportive of EBI education to make it work. It is also a challenge to find teachers who know the method and are bilingual. Many schools are in addition dependent of support from non-governmental organizations, which are an opportunity and a challenge. Important is also to make some teachers and parents believe that EBI education is not against the social development of the country.</p>

Offering basic education is the greatest investment the world can make in its future. Basic education improves live opportunity for people and also give them a chance to form a better life for them selves. Too many of Peru’s inhabitants live in extreme poverty and education could help the country improve this situation. In addition, in the rural areas of Peru a lot of people speak another language than Spanish as their mother tongue. The purpose of this thesis is to get a more profound knowledge about matters concerning Bilingual Intercultural Education in Peru. The research question has been what issues can be found, involving EBI education in Peru; opportunities and challenges? I have researched this through interviews with people working in the rural areas combined with a literature study. I visited schools in the area of Cusco and Anchonga. In Cusco the school did not have EBI education and in Anchonga the visited school did have. Some of the findings made are that it is important for the people involved such as parents, principals and teachers to be supportive of EBI education to make it work. It is also a challenge to find teachers who know the method and are bilingual. Many schools are in addition dependent of support from non-governmental organizations, which are an opportunity and a challenge. Important is also to make some teachers and parents believe that EBI education is not against the social development of the country.

The purpose of this research was to examine the ways in which Korean families of English Language Learners (ELLs) and teachers supported literacy in young children, as well as the kinds of interactions between families and teachers that supported ELL children's literacy development. The sample for this study consisted of four Korean ELL students attending public early childhood programs in Texas, their teachers and families. A constructivist grounded theory-based approach to data generation was employed, utilizing a wide variety of data collection methods such as questionnaires, interviews, observations, photography, field notes, and video recording. Grounded analysis, content analysis, and narrative analysis were then used in order to analyze the data. The case analysis showed that the parents and teachers did their best using their own resources within their own contexts. However, their educational goals and practices were not noticed or shared by each other. The families' and teacher's challenges and limited resources resulted in the creation of invisible expectations of the other parties. However, by watching video clips about literacy practices and reading handouts about each person's literacy values, goals, experiences, and photo projects, the families and teachers recognized each other's literacy resources, negotiated different expectations, and mediated communication channels to facilitate ELL children's literacy development. In the cross-case analysis, one major theme emerged: the search for understanding two different social and cultural contexts to find an overlapping resource to support ELL children's literacy learning. In detail, the more sophisticated emergent description of literacy support of the Korean family participants was provided through the lenses of the sociocultural approach, bidirectionality, and intergenerational trajectories. With regard to the construction of literacy by the teacher participants, I found that behind their support is their own perception of a bilingual child: monolingual viewpoint vs. bilingual viewpoint. Furthermore, the teachers' bilingualism was related to parental involvement in the school curriculum. The analysis then found an overlapping resource to use to enhance ELL students' learning: the practice of classroom book reading. Finally, recommendations for future applications of the Intergenerational Literacy Connection (ILC) model and some future directions for research are also discussed.

The goal of this paper is to explore the origins of modern-day racism and to discuss ways to reduce discrimination in the United States. Research on bilingualism and bilingual education indicates that bilingualism can be one method that helps reduce racism and increase cultural acceptance. For example, bilingual education can help establish multicultural identities in school children by providing better educational opportunities for English learners, teaching a new language and culture to native-English speakers, and integrating diverse cultures in classroom settings. Therefore, bilingual education can be a powerful tool in facilitating cultural awareness and reducing racial tensions in the U.S.

Because bilingual programs provide a secure environment likely to promote school belonging, it was hypothesized that Hispanic students in a bilingual program would experience higher belonging than those in regular education and that they would experience a steeper drop in belonging at the transition to middle school. Participants were 277 Hispanic and White elementary and middle school students who were followed longitudinally from grade 4 to 6. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to compare the mean levels of school belonging across groups and measure the change in school belonging at the transition. Results suggested that Hispanic students both in bilingual and in regular education had higher belonging than White students and that groups did not differ in their change in belonging at the transition to middle school.

This quantitative study has been derived from a five-year federal experimental research project entitled English and Literacy Acquisition (ELLA- R305P030032) which targeted Spanish-speaking English Language Learners (ELLs) receiving services in English immersion and bilingual program models. The purpose of this study was to investigate the predictive power of Spanish phonemic awareness in kindergarten on Spanish reading ability in first grade among Spanish-speaking ELLs. Fifty-five students from typical practice bilingual classrooms were included in this study. Phonemic awareness skills were measured using blending phonemes and segmenting words, two subtests from Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (C-TOPP). Reading ability was measured using letter-word identification and passage comprehension, two subtests from Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery-Revised (WLPB-R). Data of phonemic awareness skills were collected at the beginning and end of kindergarten and data of reading ability were collected at the beginning and end of first grade. Correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis were performed to address the research questions. The data from this study present a picture of a predictive power of phonemic awareness skills on reading comprehension in Spanish. Results from this study suggest that both skill areas of phonemic awareness in kindergarten have a moderate predictive effect on reading ability at the beginning of first grade. However, phonemic awareness skills in kindergarten did not show a statistically significant relationship to Spanish literacy at the end of first grade. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.