The United States government is perennially in need of employees with proficiency in critical foreign languages to communicate with foreign counterparts and maintain relationships worldwide. In order to fulfill this need, the government devotes significant resources training federal employees to advanced levels of language proficiency through…

Adult learners of a new language (L2) tend not to achieve target-like knowledge and performance, so the cognitive status of L2s has long been debated. While monolingual native (L1) speakers robustly apply their grammatical knowledge to input as it unfolds, there are competing claims about whether L2 speakers also do so reflexively (Dekydtspotter,…

This paper presents the results of a retrospective study that investigates the cognitive effects of learning a foreign language in late adulthood. The learner group, consisting of 21 L1 Chinese speakers who have been learning to read Arabic for 2 years and 4 months, were compared to the matched group on their performance on a series of cognitive…

Within the research on bilingual learning, first studies have revealed that content learned in one language is retrieved more slowly when participants have to switch language from instruction to testing (i.e., language-switching costs, LSC). These costs are attributed to language-dependent knowledge representations. However, the cognitive…

Language learning is an important necessity of today's globalized society. Therefore, it is vital to provide the most effective methods for learning a foreign language. Through understanding how foreign language learning, cognitive load theory, learning modalities, and participants' physiological sex relate to one another, more effective…

Within the context of second language (L2) writing, learner engagement with feedback has elicited significant theoretical and empirical interest (e.g., Zhang & Hyland, 2018; Zheng & Yu, 2018). Research has highlighted the dynamic nature of learner engagement with written corrective feedback (WCF), but the ways in which learner and…

This study investigated the effect of LWR and the level of passage difficulty on L2 reading comprehension. Five upper intermediate ESL students were exposed to four different treatment combinations of silent reading and LWR with low and high intrinsic load reading passages. Reading comprehension was measured by immediate recall protocol. Under the…

This case study examines whether or not an intervention in brain-based learning (BBL) brings about any change in language learning beliefs (LLBs) of adult EFL learners. Students enrolled in an English preparatory program were taught in accord with BBL principles over 16 weeks. Beliefs about language learning inventory (BALLI) was administered at…

Although an accurate measure of vocabulary size is integral to understanding the proficiency of language learners, the validity of multiple-choice (M/C) vocabulary tests to determine this has been questioned due to users guessing correct answers which inflates scores. In this paper the nature of guessing and partial knowledge used when taking the…

For corrective feedback (CF) to contribute to second language (L2) development, some cognitive processes need to be completed. Learners need to notice and comprehend the CF, reflect on and deeply process it, and finally integrate it into their interlanguage (Gass, 1997). Written languaging (WL), which requires learners to explicitly explain to…

In this chapter, I present an interactional and multimodal analysis of video-recorded mental health consultations with asylum seekers in France. My main focus is on sequences in which the patients talk with the therapist about their learning of French, in some cases through the mediation of a professional interpreter. The particular context of…

Skill acquisition theorists conceptualize second language (L2) learning as the acquisition of a set of perceptual, cognitive, and motor skills. The dominant view in skill acquisition theory is to regard L2 skill acquisition as a three-stage process "from initial representation of knowledge through initial changes in behavior to eventual…

There is limited research on second language (L2) vocabulary teaching and learning which provides fine-grained descriptions of how vocabulary explanations (VE) are interactionally managed in beginning-level L2 classrooms where learners have a limited L2 repertoire, and how the VEs could contribute to the learners' conceptual understanding of the…

Engaging a complexity theory view of learning, this study examined an atypical timescale for tracking L2 authorial voice development through the interaction of cognitive processes that inform voice construction. A microgenetic analysis of seven adult Japanese learners of English in a three-week writing course designed to help students develop…

Adult second language (L2) learning often exhibits great variability in its rate and outcome. Although research shows that learning trajectories are partly shaped by social and contextual factors (e.g. Larson-Hall, 2008), certain learner factors play an important role in enhancing L2 pronunciation learning by helping L2 learners notice and process…