This study examined whether children 4- and 5-years-old (N = 156) can revise a physical science misconception from different types of picture books. A realistic fiction book and informational book with identical images matched in word count and reading difficulty level were compared to a control book about plants. In the pretest and posttest,…

This study reported the development and initial validation of the Survey of Parent/Provider Expectations and Knowledge (SPEAK), a self-administered questionnaire assessing expectations and knowledge about early childhood cognitive and language development. Development of the SPEAK was guided by the theory emphasizing the role of language input…

This study investigated whether parent perceptions of their own and their child's levels of talkativeness were related to objective measures recorded via the Language Environment Analysis (LENA) System. Parents of 258 children aged 7 to 60 months completed a questionnaire on which they rated how much they and their child talked. Six months…

This study examines the English vocabulary development of 43 very young child English as a foreign language (FL) learners (age 3.2-6.2) in China. They were tested twice for vocabulary breadth (reception and production) and semantic depth (paradigmatic and syntagmatic vocabulary knowledge). The development of the English vocabulary knowledge…

The present paper explores and compares the receptive vocabulary sizes of two groups of learners of different native languages. One of the most widely used vocabulary size tests is the Vocabulary Levels Test designed by Nation. Some reservations have been raised in relation to the adequacy of the Vocabulary Levels Test to estimate the vocabulary…

A body of studies, which are mostly based on parental reports, have documented gender differences in early language proficiency, and girls tend to outperform boys in both language production and language comprehension. In this study, staff in Norwegian Early Childhood Education and Care institutions observed language comprehension, word…

Young people from areas of socioeconomic disadvantage (SED) are more likely to present with language difficulties, particularly vocabulary difficulties. Studies have shown the effectiveness of vocabulary interventions for children with language impairment but not for adolescents from areas of SED. This article aims to establish the effectiveness…

Needs analysis can be a vital asset for teachers of English for specific purposes (ESP) to identify their learners' key requirements or needs and determine the areas in which they are lacking skills. Against this background, this study was undertaken during the academic year 2015-16 to define the English language needs of engineering students…

Four-year-old (n = 20) and five-year-old (n = 22) bilingual children were tested twice in six months on Armenian (minority language) and English (majority language) picture identification and picture naming tasks to examine receptive and expressive vocabulary growth in both languages. Parental education, Armenian/English language exposure, and…

In recent years, a number of studies have attempted to assess the English vocabulary knowledge of high-school students and undergraduate university students in contexts where English is a foreign language (EFL). The present paper explores the lexical development of Arab undergraduates at a Saudi University where EFL is the medium of instruction.…

In this paper the incidental language acquisition of 11-year-old Flemish children (n = 30) who have not received any formal English instruction is investigated. The study looks into children's English proficiency and the learner characteristics that can be associated with it. In order to measure the children's English proficiency, a receptive…

The present paper presents a comparative study of the lexical profiles of young content and language integrated learning (CLIL) and traditional English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' written production. The different nature and amount of foreign language input received in these classes may have consequences in learners' lexical profiles in…

This study investigated how task-based learning (TBL) developed the verbal competence of Chinese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) by employing qualitative and quantitative analyses. We compared the impromptu oral presentations on reading texts of 76 intermediate EFL learners given respectively in the beginning and the end of the…

Vocabulary acquisition has been a main concern of EFL English teachers and learners. There have been tons of research to examine the student's level of receptive vocabulary and productive vocabulary, but no research has conducted on how turning receptive vocabulary into productive vocabulary. This study has reported the impact of the teaching…

In the present study, we examined the relation of knowledge of semantic radicals to students' language proficiency and word reading for adult Chinese-as-a-foreign language students. Ninety-seven college students rated their proficiency in speaking, listening, reading, and writing in Chinese, and were administered measures of receptive and…