Despite the worldwide prevalence of multilingualism, the knowledge of the relationship between domain-general cognitive control and multilingual language control remains scant. Here we provide new insights into this issue by examining systematically how different components of inhibitory control (i.e., response inhibition and interference…

The ability to interact with others has gained recognition as part of the L2 speaking construct in the assessment literature and in high- and low-stakes speaking assessments. This paper first presents a review of the literature on interactional competence (IC) in L2 learning and assessment. It then discusses a particular feature--"producing…

This study investigates a particular behavior in talk-in-interaction that appears to be, at least in its most explicit form, relatively unique to children, that is, the behavior whereby one participant explicitly instructs another participant to say a specific phrase, after which the first participant then supplies a prefashioned response. Rather…

Collaborative output has been found to facilitate L2 lexical learning due to the cognitive word processing engendered in it. Yet it is not clear how interactions involved in collaborative output could affect learners' word processing and hence their lexical learning. This paper takes a sociocultural perspective to investigate Chinese EFL learners'…

Despite the growing popularity of paired format speaking assessments, the effects of pre-task planning time on performance in these formats are not yet well understood. For example, some studies have revealed the benefits of planning but others have not. Using a multifaceted approach including analysis of the process of speaking performance, the…

This study investigates the roles of collaborative output, the modality of output, and word engagement in vocabulary learning and retention by Chinese-speaking undergraduate EFL learners. The two treatment groups reconstructed a passage that they had read in one of two ways: (1) dyadic oral interaction while producing a written report (Written…

Reports on a pilot study examining the effects of reading and interactive vocabulary instruction on the vocabulary development of English-as-a-Second-language students attending a U.S. university-preparatory intensive English program. Findings suggest that such instruction combined with self-selected and course-related reading can improve…

Reports five experiments; the first two assessed the effect of the selectional restriction requirements of verbs and the animacy of nouns on sentence comprehension, the third determined the cause of the interaction found in the first set of studies, and the fourth and fifth were self-paced reading experiments. (52 references) (Author/CK)

A study examined patterns of development in spoken interaction and types of causal thought that might reflect the human capacity to displace, that is, to shift reference from the present moment to another moment in time. Participants were four infants and their parents, who came to a laboratory for one-half hour every 2 weeks from the child's…

In any successful conversation, a speaker must select both what is said and how it is said on the basis of various estimates of the listener's abilities, knowledge and interests. Most research on linguistic input to children has focused on the tendency of speakers to simplify their speech for the younger listener. Little attention has been paid to…