This study explored the effects of learning activities which encouraged positive crosslinguistic influence from L2 Spanish to L1 English grammar in young learners. The learners (N = 82) were studying Spanish as their compulsory foreign language at an English state primary school in the UK. As part of ten timetabled Spanish classes over a period of…

The present study examined the extent to which first language (L1) awareness can benefit second language (L2) grammatical learning of the French "Imparfait", a crosslinguistically complex target feature. Sixty-nine English-speaking learners of L2 French received different types of explicit information (EI) about L2 or L2 + L1…

Recent years have witnessed a strong and increasing interest in the incidental learning of second language grammar. While much of this research has focused on the acquisition of second language word order or noun-determiner systems, relatively fewer studies have examined the learning of second language morphology. Results of studies that have…

This paper contributes to the literature on the transferability of grapho-morphological awareness (GMA) for second language (L2) learners by analysing L2 learners' knowledge of morphology in reading. GMA helps readers to identify grammatical categories, infer meanings of unfamiliar words, and access stored lexical information. Previous research…

Discusses a visual representation of the English verb system. This system helps overcome difficulties with the opaqueness of metalanguage and with distinguishing between key notions such as "tense" and "aspect." The article shows how learners can fathom the abstract meanings involved through the use of 'icons' that obviate the…

Discusses the advantages of the use of large natural language corpora in promoting grammatical awareness among language teachers and students, focusing on word classes and prescriptive approaches to language as they relate to Britain's National Curriculum at the elementary level. (13 references) (MDM)

Describes an exercise in lexical analysis, involving verbs of sound in English and Spanish. The aim of the exercise is to enable students to discover underlying patterns of meaning that are representative of lexical-conceptual structure. (Author/VL)

Examined whether variations in adult native speaker performance arise from variations in working memory capacity or variations in procedural grammatical competence. Three groups of 18-year-old native speakers of English were tested on comprehension and recall of English complex noun phrase constructions. Results support the view that variations in…

Argues for the use of computer-stored corpora in courses in grammar awareness for teachers of mother-tongue English. It is suggested that the ability to do grammar entails a set of skills rather than a body of knowledge and that corpora provide excellent data for doing grammar. Questions regarding the comparison of different methodologies are…