Following the current research in conversation analysis in the field of second language (L2) learning, the present study demonstrates that beginner-level adult learners actively contribute to vocabulary explanation sequences by mobilising multimodal resources including depictive gestures, gaze, and short verbal turns. The data consist of…

"A Dictionary of Contemporary Figurative Language" is meant to be an appendix to an earlier, more comprehensive work: ED648945, "A Dictionary and Thesaurus of Contemporary Figurative Language and Metaphor 2024." This appendix simply updates the dictionary of that previous work to better reflect the language used during the 2024…

The use of augmented reality (AR) in teaching English as a second language is examined in this article. Traditional language teaching techniques sometimes fall short of engaging students and offering real-world applications, which results in boredom and slow development. Through the use of augmented reality (AR) technology, digital content can be…

Cognitive neuroscience has gained significant insight into the mechanisms underlying the mental lexicon and their impact on second language vocabulary learning. However, relatively little effort has been put into understanding how these mechanisms may impact instructional practices. We attempt to bridge this gap. Towards that end, we first…

This paper reviews how the construct of oral fluency in a second language (L2) has been defined and researched over the last twenty-five years. The emerging picture is somewhat kaleidoscopic, as domains of cognitive, social, individual and linguistic influences on L2 speech have been opened up for study. L2 fluency research presents a wealth of…

English is clarified as a Germanic language, and it began in what is now the British-Isles. After years of development, English language has many varieties in different parts of the world. Different varieties differ in accent, vocabulary, grammar, discourse, sociolinguistics, and have its respective characteristics in pronunciation, tone,…

Classroom assessment practices can be confusing for many teachers. Terminology is numerous and elusive. Different types of assessment serve different purposes. This short discussion paper's contribution originates from my own attempt to determine whether analytic scales would be more appropriate than holistic scales for assessing the L2 writing…

Variation in the use of terminology in the field of ELT can make dialogue difficult, if not impossible, with significant implications for sharing knowledge, structuring language provision, and, ultimately, teaching practices. Furthermore, such variation has the potential to influence negatively the perceptions of stakeholders both within and…

This technical brief describes the easyCBM® Spanish language Vocabulary assessments added to the easyCBM® system in the fall of 2018 and provides the initial norms for the fall and winter assessments. These norms should be interpreted with caution, as the sample was smaller than ideal, particularly for the Winter norms.

Interactive alignment is a phenomenon whereby interlocutors adopt and re-use each other's language patterns in the course of authentic interaction. According to the interactive alignment model, originally proposed by Pickering & Garrod (2004), this linguistic coordination is one way in which interlocutors achieve understanding in dialogue,…

A browser-based system to facilitate practice in asking and answering simple questions in English was developed. The user may ask or answer by speaking or typing, and the computer's output is in the form of speech and/or text. The types of questions handled and the permitted vocabulary are limited, though the vocabulary items may be edited freely.…

This paper describes one approach to focusing on Connections, one of the five Cs from the World Readiness Standards for Learning Languages, as a means of exposing introductory language students to culturally diverse authentic texts through drama-based pedagogy. Our approach focuses on an instructor working within an established departmental…

Lessons designed to teach reading and listening typically concentrate on the use of higher-level skills and strategies, such as predicting, scanning, inferencing, understanding text structure, or activating background knowledge. Given that these normal communication skills are already available to students for mother-tongue use, they should…

In recent decades, the study of language learners' embodied behavior amongst themselves has gained much currency. Broadly speaking, a wealth of studies on learner gestures connect gestures with second language acquisition, and have shown that gestures play a role in facilitating communication, acquisition, and retention (Gullberg, 1998, 2011,…

Increased attention to genre in writing studies has brought a proliferation of new terms and concepts for capturing the complexity of writers' knowledge about genres, including genre knowledge, genre awareness, recontextualization, conditional knowledge, and metacognition. Definitions of these concepts have at times conflicted, and their…