There are several theories which tackle predicting the source of third language (L3) crosslinguistic influence. The two orthogonal questions that arise are which language is most likely to influence the L3 and whether the influence will be wholesale or piecemeal (property-by-property). To my mind, Westergaard's Linguistic Proximity Model (LPM) is…

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…

When we think of the debates surrounding linguistic transfer in L3 acquisition, one of the most prominent discussions concerns whether transfer occurs in a wholesale fashion or whether it is property-by-property. One such model is the Linguistic Proximity Model (LPM, Mykhaylyk et al., 2015; Westergaard et al., 2017; Westergaard, 2021), which…

This provocative article raises many important issues that need to be addressed and in so doing will advance the fields of second language (L2) and third language (L3) acquisition in several important ways. Fundamental questions concerning multilingual development persist especially with respect to the role of Universal Grammar in this language…

When working with bilingual readers, teaching for equity means building on students' linguistic strengths. To do so, we must provide intentionally designed holistic literacy instruction that encourages students to use their full literacy and linguistic repertoire. This article describes an asset-oriented approach called "Transliteracy"…

In the present article, I revisit the ongoing controversy surrounding the use of translation in the foreign language classroom in general. I begin by defining the concept of 'translation' arguing that translation can be understood either as a method or as a means and that it is exactly the ambiguity of the term that has led to the current debate…

Even a quick glance at international data reveals something troubling: There is an increasing economic and educational gap between Africa and the rest of the world. If we look just a bit deeper, we find that economic and educational stagnation may simply be the inevitable outcomes of broad educational failure for millions of rural African…

Storms, Ameel, and Malt [2015. "Development of Cross-language Lexical Influence." "International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism" 18: 529-547] compared the development of naming patterns in monolingual and bilingual children. They concluded that bilinguals' naming patterns in their two languages become…

This paper examines evidence for relationships among individual differences (IDs) in L1 achievement, L2 aptitude, and L2 achievement. It begins by providing an overview of my academic journey from L1 educator to L2 researcher and explains the development of the Linguistic Coding Differences Hypothesis (LCDH). Next, I review Peter Skehan's…

Lexical knowledge is complex, multidimensional, and difficult to pin down to a set of defined components. The development, organization, and use of lexical knowledge in the first and additional languages are studied in a number of neighbouring disciplines beyond second language acquisition and applied linguistics, including psycholinguistics,…

The present article summarizes various aspects of teaching foreign languages to learners with dyslexia. In particular, although it is a matter examined broadly around the world, in Greece there are few references and limited research in this field. Furthermore, the lack of foreign language teachers' training in the field of specific learning…

When an adult migrant begins to acquire a second language, it is often presumed that the learner is already equipped with first language literacy and can therefore transfer these same literacy skills during their acquisition of the new, second language. However, many adult second language (L2) learners lack the opportunity to develop first…

Young English learners (ELs) whose home language is Spanish continue to lag behind in several school readiness areas including language and literacy skills in spite of their strong social skills, which are positively related to language and literacy. The purpose of this article is to identify challenges that preschool Spanish speaking ELs face,…

Based on Jenny Thomas's dichotomous classification of pragmatic failure, this study proposes a new perspective and classifies pragmatic failure in interpretation into three categories: pragma-linguistic failure, socio-pragmatic failure and malaprop-pragmatic failure. Specific examples are given to illustrate the causes and effects of each category…

When it comes to L1 and L2 differences in second-language writing, some researchers are not fully convinced that there is a fundamental difference. However, when comparing L1 and L2 writing, many would agree that macro- and micro-level writing characteristics exist and overlap (Eckstein and Ferris 2018). This article identifies some of the…