We evaluated the effects of tact and listener instruction on the emergence of bidirectional intraverbal relations with 6 typically developing Brazilian children, using an adapted alternating treatment design with pretest and posttest probes. In listener instruction, participants selected pictures that corresponded to spoken foreign-language words.…

This exploratory post-hoc analysis examined the impact of learners' first language (L1) on learning vocabulary annotated in immersive 360º pictures. This analysis is a part of a larger, between-subjects study (Papin & Kaplan-Rakowski, 2020) in which learners (N=63) of French as a second language (L2) studied vocabulary annotated in (1)…

Reading fluency research and practice have recently undergone some changes. While past studies and interventions focused on reading speed as their main goal, now more emphasis is being placed on exploring the role prosody plays in reading, and how listening to an audio model of a text while reading may act as a form of scaffolding, or aid, to…

In this reply to Salverda (2016), we address a critique of the claims made in our recent study of real-time processing of American Sign Language (ASL) signs using a novel visual world eye-tracking paradigm (Lieberman, Borovsky, Hatrak, & Mayberry, 2015). Salverda asserts that our data do not support our conclusion that native signers and…

Lieberman, Borovsky, Hatrak, and Mayberry (2015) used a modified version of the visual-world paradigm to examine the real-time processing of signs in American Sign Language. They examined the activation of phonological and semantic competitors in native signers and late-learning signers and concluded that their results provide evidence that the…

Students will speak a second language with an accent if they learn the language after the age of six. It does not matter how motivated and clever they are, the accent will not go away. Only a few gifted students can speak a second language flawlessly. The exact reasons for this phenomenon are unknown. Although a large number of hypotheses have…

We evaluated the effectiveness of a stimulus pairing observation procedure to facilitate tact and listener relations in preschool children learning a second language. This procedure resulted in the establishment of most listener relations as well as some tact relations. Multiple-exemplar training resulted in the establishment of most of the…

Two experiments involving picture classifications investigated priming behavior in the context of "wh"-movement at clause edge and in indirect object position, respectively. In Experiment 1, intermediate L1-Chinese L2-English learners produced slower classification times (inhibitions) at clause edge, apparently induced by the computation of…

This study investigates caption-reading behavior by foreign language (L2) learners and, through eye-tracking methodology, explores the extent to which the relationship between the native and target language affects that behavior. Second-year (4th semester) English-speaking learners of Arabic, Chinese, Russian, and Spanish watched 2 videos…

This study investigates whether native Hmong speakers' first language (L1) lexical tone experience facilitates or interferes with their perception of Mandarin tones and whether training is effective for perceptual learning of second (L2) tones. In Experiment 1, 3 groups of beginning level learners of Mandarin with different L1 prosodic background…

Phonetic variation has been considered a barrier that listeners must overcome in speech perception, but has been proved beneficial in category learning. In this paper, I show that listeners use within-speaker variation to accommodate gross categorical variation. Within the perceptual learning paradigm, listeners are exposed to p-initial words in…

This paper reports on a comparative study of pauses made by L2 learners and native speakers of English while narrating picture stories. The comparison is based on the number of pauses and total amount of silence in the middle and at the end of clauses in the performance of 40 native speakers and 40 L2 learners of English. The results of the…

This study made frequency and functional analysis of thematization in English students' compositions in Shahid Chamran University. Ninety students were selected and divided into three groups, followed by a homogeneity test (Fowler and Coe, 1976). An educated native speaker was also used as a criterion measure. Then, they were asked to narrate…

Vocabulary knowledge is of fundamental importance to reading comprehension, and many students lack the vocabulary knowledge necessary to facilitate learning to read. A study was conducted to determine the effects of an individualized, online vocabulary program on picture vocabulary test scores. Elementary summer school students (N = 43), entering…

English is written with interword spacing, and eliminating it negatively affects English readers. Chinese is written without interword spacing, and adding it does not facilitate Chinese readers. "Pinyin" (romanized Chinese) is written with interword spacing. This study investigated whether adding interword spacing facilitates reading in Chinese…