Adults learning a new language tend to judge unconventional utterances more leniently than fluent speakers do; ratings on acceptable utterances, however, tend to align more closely with fluent speakers. This asymmetry raises a question as to whether unconventional utterances can be statistically preempted by conventional utterances for adult…

The present study aimed to explore the relationship between reading attitude, motivation, and the metacognitive awareness of reading strategies (MARS) of adult English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. Ninety-seven Iranian intermediate EFL learners participated in the study after a multi-stage sampling. The initial analysis suggested high…

In the last decades, the field of applied linguistics has called for an expanded knowledge on language learning in different learner groups and contexts, including forced migrants and low-literate learners. This article focuses on an under-studied learner group in an under-studied context: low literate adult refugees (LESLLA) subjected to language…

This study explores adult migrants' formal and informal opportunities for learning their host country's dominant language: specifically, the availability, accessibility, and effects of these opportunities on the migrants' social integration. It prioritizes the migrants' experience by reporting findings obtained from analyses of questionnaire data…

This article investigates the significance of the use of multilingual language assistants (MLAs) in second language teaching for adult migrants with limited formal schooling. Norton's theories of investmentand critical pedagogy serve as an analytical backdrop. An emic perspective is adopted, with interviews with nine adult learners taking centre…

As Australia's population becomes increasingly diverse, this paper examines how adult education can foster belonging, community, and empowerment for CALD learners -- a critical issue with broad societal implications. While Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) adult education aims to empower learners, this paper uncovers the complex…

While addressing issues of prejudice and exclusion is crucial for helping adult second language (L2) learners acquire and critique socio-interactional norms of their pluralistic communities, there is still a lack of work examining how teachers can problematize prejudiced talk when it arises in the classroom. Within the detail-oriented frameworks…

This book traces the motivational dynamics embedded within lifelong foreign language learning trajectories, examining the factors which generate and sustain motivation throughout a learner's life. Embracing a complexity approach, it views motivation as a long-term individual process that evolves along a narrative continuum, developing over the…

Research has shown that massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) have the potential to offer language learning opportunities. However, there is a dearth of research exploring student attitudes about the potential of these games for language learning. We used the language learning principles framework proposed by Brown and Lee…

Current approaches to assessing digital competence in education may be too broad to support teachers in developing their online learning designs in specific subjects. During the pandemic, studies have identified that the development of teaching practices (and subsequently their learning designs) has taken a leap. However, because digital cultures…

Drawing on recent scholarship integrating usage-based linguistics (UBL) and conversation analysis (CA) in the investigation of second language development, this paper reports on a microanalysis tracing one adult learner's recurring, increasingly frequent, and diverse use of the multiword expression "det er sant" (it/that is true) (DES)…

Older migrants are often later-life language learners by necessity. While the bulk of extant research on older language learners focuses on those who elect language learning as a constructive leisure pursuit, for older migrants with low proficiency in the dominant host country language, progress in language learning is a key factor that…

This study reports on findings from two experiments investigating the interpretive patterns of overt pronouns in an embedded subject position with three types of matrix subjects (i.e. a referential NP, a quantified NP, or a "wh"-phrase) in Mandarin, English, and Japanese. According to the Overt Pronoun Constraint (OPC), overt pronouns in…

This study investigated adult learners' experiences with the language of their new living environment. Migrants and refugees' personal goals for language learning in their specific life situations were captured in in-depth interviews conducted as part of ethnographically oriented field studies in Finland and Germany. Interpretative…

This paper seeks to present the case of successful nativelike proficiency in L7, achieved in adulthood. As a case study of multiple language acquisition processes acquired, both in childhood and adulthood, this study operates in the fields of multilingualism and language acquisition. The author presents her experiences of language acquisition and…