Purpose: Current research has demonstrated that behavioral, emotional, and/or social difficulties often accompany developmental language disorder (DLD). It is an open question to what degrees such difficulties arise as consequence of impaired language and communicative skills, or whether they might also be driven by deficits in verbal and…

This paper presents an approach to standard setting that combines the prototype group method (PGM; Eckes, 2012) with a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. The combined PGM-ROC approach is applied to setting cut scores on a placement test of English as a foreign language (EFL). To implement the PGM, experts first named learners whom…

Acquisitionists generally assume a relation between code-mixing in young bilingual and trilingual children and language dominance. In our cross-sectional study we investigated the possible relation between code-mixing and language dominance in 122 children raised in Spain or Germany. They were bilingual, trilingual or multilingual, the latter…

Background: English language proficiency is considered a basic skill that students from different language backgrounds are expected to master, independent of whether they are native or non-native speakers. Tests that measure language proficiency in non-native speakers are typically linked to the common European framework of reference for…

This paper presents a series of experiments that tested the usefulness of teaching Spanish mood using an approach to Cognitive Grammar specifically developed for the foreign language classroom: "Operational Grammar." Mood selection is one of the most difficult aspects of learning Spanish as a FL, and it is one of the last features…

Reports a study wherein a foreign language aptitude test was used to group German students beginning English language instruction in three types of German intermediate schools. Students were tested periodically to determine if the groups originally established were maintained. By the end of the second year, they were not. (PMJ)