The present study investigates the impact of meaningful input on L2 learners' vocabulary use and their fluency in oral performance (immediate and repeat tasks), as well as whether the effects are mediated by learners' prior vocabulary knowledge and working memory. Ninety university students learning English as a foreign language were randomly…

Human word learning is remarkable: We not only learn thousands of words but also form organized semantic networks in which words are interconnected according to meaningful links, such as those between "apple," "juicy," and "pear." These links play key roles in our abilities to use language. How do words become…

Previous studies demonstrated that the continuation task has great language learning potential and that various task-related factors may affect the extent to which the potential can be exploited (e.g. Wang & Wang, 2015). This study investigates the effect of one understudied factor, the linguistic complexity of the input text, on English as a…

While most empirical studies have investigated the improvement of learners' L2 spoken proficiency via speaking-related interventions, the present study examined the same topic through a different modality: listening. Ninety-five first-year tertiary-level students of English as a second language (ESL) in Hong Kong participated in this three-month…

Prosody is a linguistic feature in spoken English that is complex yet plays an important role in oral communication. Nevertheless, many EFL pronunciation classes in Thailand have not adequately emphasized the importance and functions of prosody to learners. This research study aims to investigate effect of an oral fluency instructional method…

Studies in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) indicate that the use of discourse markers (DMs) in the academic writing of second language learners improves the overall quality of these texts by contributing to their cohesion and comprehensibility (Saif Modhish 2012; Jalilifar 2008; Intaraprawat & Steffensen 1995). However, despite the…

This study investigated the various linguistic, psychological, and sociocultural variables that explain the sociolinguistic variation in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) among Arab siblings. The variables are not predetermined but extracted from the participants' contributions and data in a grounded theory research. The siblings participated in…

This study investigates the effects on developing L2 listening fluency through doing extended listening-focused activities after reading and listening to audio graded readers. Seventy-six EFL university students read and listened to a total of 15 graded readers in a 15-week extensive listening programme. They were divided into three groups (Group…

The use of online language corpora in L2 teaching and learning is gaining momentum largely because corpora are an easily accessed source of language input that potentially provide rich and authentic lexico-grammatical data. This can be of particular use for students' writing as its incorporation can enhance the appearance of native-like fluency.…