Due to their experience of managing two languages, it has been suggested that bilinguals could receive more practice in the domain of working memory (WM) leading to a WM bilingual advantage. Although some studies have shown that bilinguals can outperform monolinguals in WM tasks, the studies investigating WM capacity in bilinguals provide…

Despite the growing body of research on foreign language reading anxiety, there is still a dearth of comprehensive meta-analysis regarding the effect sizes of these studies. To fill the gap, this study meta-analyzed the overall average correlation between foreign language reading anxiety and its correlates among 9785 participants: two…

This study set out to re-examine the effectiveness of study abroad programs in second language (L2) acquisition through a multi-level meta-analysis. Overall, 42 primary studies published between 1995 and 2019 were identified, and in total 283 effect sizes were meta-analysed. This study implemented a three-level random effects model to account for…

Flipped learning has become a popular approach in various educational fields, including second language teaching. In this approach, the conventional educational process is reversed so that learners do their homework and prepare the material before going to class. Class time is then devoted to practice, discussion, and higher-order thinking tasks…

Event-related potentials (ERPs) have become widespread in second language acquisition (SLA) research and a growing body of literature has been produced in recent years. We surveyed 61 SLA papers that use ERPs to study L2 sentence processing in healthy late learners. Our main aim was to provide a critical summary of findings from the decade…

Purpose: The present study aimed to systemically summarize the structural relationships among correlated components of second language (L2) reading comprehension to investigate the extent to which the two major components -- language comprehension abilities and decoding skills -- could account for reading comprehension in L2 contexts in accordance…

The present article offers a review of the existing literature on L2 gains arising from participation in a study abroad (SA) experience. The purpose of this article is (1) to provide a general overview of research findings on the influence of time abroad on L2 development and (2) to identify the areas which need further research within the SA…

This literature review explores the sociocultural experiences of international graduate students in universities in the United States. In addition to the typical challenges faced by students going to universities in America, international graduate students undergo extra stress. Research has shown that students face issues such as negotiating the…

This meta-analysis reviewed research between 2012 and 2018 focused on technology-assisted second language (L2) vocabulary learning for English as a foreign language (EFL) learner. A total of 45 studies of 2,374 preschool-to-college EFL students contributed effect sizes to this meta-analysis. Compared with traditional instructional methods, the…

This article provides a selective overview of recent event-related brain potential (ERP) studies in L2 morpho-syntax, demonstrating that the ERP evidence supporting the critical period hypothesis (CPH) may be less compelling than previously thought. The article starts with a general introduction to ERP methodology and language-related ERP profiles…

This review aims to address the major sources of stress experienced by international students, the role of individual differences, the chronology of their stress levels and wellbeing over time, and gaps in the existing literature. Two electronic databases (PubMed and Psych Info) were searched for English peer-reviewed articles using eight search…

The present meta-analysis examined the overall average correlation (weighted for sample size and corrected for measurement error) between passage-level second language (L2) reading comprehension and 10 key reading component variables investigated in the research domain. Four high-evidence correlates (with 18 or more accumulated effect sizes: L2…

Learning a second or foreign language is a long and time-consuming process, and not all language learners may be able to achieve a very high level of proficiency in the target language. It is even rarer to find second or foreign language learners who can use the target language as well as native speakers of the language. Researchers in the field…

Learning strategy research has been very prolific and much has been written about the field and its importance to language learning. This paper traces the history and development of learning strategy research by anchoring it in the field of cognitive psychology in the early years from 1970 to 1990 before reviewing the varied and descriptive nature…

The issue of identifying reading difficulties and disabilities in English language learners (ELLs) is a complex one. It is an area that draws on the diverse disciplines of first- and second-language acquisition, literacy, English language learning, and reading, including differences and disabilities research. This literature review aims to…