The effect of first language transfer on second language acquisition and learning has been a major theoretical concept in second language research and pedagogy since the 1950s. In order to give a historical perspective, the authors offer a brief presentation of some of the major topics from the broad spectrum of issues that have been examined by…

Learner corpora of written texts from academic writing assignments provide a practical resource for students, particularly in fostering academic writing skills. One such corpus is the newly available ROGER (Corpus of Romanian Academic Genres), a bilingual comparable corpus containing learner discipline-specific academic writing data in Romanian…

Acquiring a second language (L2) has been increasingly recognized to be an ongoing developmental process, one that progresses in a fluid and non-linear fashion (Larsen-Freeman, 2015). Instead of operating like a mechanical black box that parses incoming linguistic information and outputs oral/written language indiscriminately, the learner's…

In exploring ways in which the L1 and code-switching can be used as potential resources in the L2 classroom, Cenoz and Gorter (2011), provide valuable insights for both second language researchers and instructors. First, the various approaches through which code-cracking and interaction have been studied will be mentioned. Next, Cenoz and Gorter's…

This article offers the author's commentary on the Multiple Grammars (MG) language acquisition theory proposed by Luiz Amaral and Tom Roeper in the present issue. Multiple Grammars advances the claim that optionality is a constitutive characteristic of any one grammar, with interlanguage grammars being perhaps the clearest examples of a…

This article offers the author's commentary on the Multiple Grammar (MG) language acquisition theory proposed by Luiz Amaral and Tom Roeper in the present issue and touches on other second language acquisition research. Topics discussed include the concept of second language (L2) optionality, a hypothesis regarding the acquisition of the…

This article examines the Multiple Grammars (MG) theory proposed by Luiz Amaral and Tom Roeper in the present issue and presents a critique of the research that went into the theory. Topics discussed include the allegation that the bilinguals and second language learners in the original article are primarily students in an academic setting, Amaral…

Because the appearance of the passive construction varies cross linguistically, differences exist in the interlanguage (IL) passives attempted by learners of English. One such difference is the widely studied IL pseudo passive, as in "*new cars must keep inside" produced by Chinese speakers. The belief that this is a reflection of L1 language…

In reviewing views on the use of L1 in L2 classrooms, the author argues for the benefits of using L1. The author argues for the benefits of written translation activities based on the ideas that translation uses authentic materials, is interactive, learner-centered, and promotes learner autonomy. The author also argues that written translation…