Although claims about explicit and implicit language knowledge are central to many debates in SLA, little research has been dedicated to measuring the two knowledge types (R. Ellis, 2004, 2005). The purpose of this study was to validate the use of the battery of tests reported in Ellis (2005) to measure implicit and explicit language knowledge.…

Adults can often improve their perception of novel phoneme contrasts with exposure to a second language, but there is yet little understanding of how they accomplish this. The primary aim of this study was to compare two types of evidence that learners might use to learn the phonemes of second language: minimal pairs, or the lexicon, and…

A number of theories of second language L2 acquisition acknowledge a role for explicit L2 knowledge. However, the testing of these theories remains problematic because of the lack of a widely accepted means for measuring L2 explicit knowledge. This article seeks to address this lacuna by examining L2 explicit knowledge from two perspectives.…

A study of the difference between knowledge and use of two languages by bilinguals in a partially bilingual situation looks at what is known about language knowledge and language usage, the linguistic and communication tensions affecting monolinguals in a community, some special cases, and the possibilities for diachronic analysis of language…

The student placement test in English as a Second Language used for the Eurocentres schools in the United Kingdom differs from traditional placement tests in that it is a vocabulary test and does not attempt to measure other aspects of learner knowledge of English. The test attempts to measure absolute size of the learner's English vocabulary. The…

This study tested a refined version of the discourse domain hypothesis, which defines the discourse domain as a topic area in which second language learners demonstrate extensive, current, and important knowledge, including both cognitive and affective dimensions. The study tested the results of previous studies, which showed that learners show…