The affective turn in the second language (L2) acquisition literature has witnessed a shift from the periphery to a clear focus on emotions. Nevertheless, this shift tends to examine emotion separately from cognition. Vygotsky's "perezhivanie" provides a theoretical lens to explore the inextricable interconnectedness of emotion and…

In second language (L2) research, the lexical unit is often defined as a base word plus inflectional and derivational forms through Level 6 of Bauer and Nation's framework (WF6). WF6 use has been justified by the assumption that once a form is known, recognition of other WF6 members requires little extra effort. A more lenient view holds that an…

Studies focused on motivation to learn languages other than English or more than 1 language simultaneously have been gaining attention in recent years. However, there are far fewer than those related to second language (L2) English learning. To fill this gap, this article explores the evolving motivation of 2 Japanese students who spent 1 academic…

This study draws on multimodal conversation analysis to emically account for moments in second language (L2) English interaction in which speakers appear to be visualizing text as they talk. One way they do this is by slotting out elements of a turn-in-progress in the air, shifting their hand in a slotting gesture from left to right as they say…

This study examined how mode of input affects the learning of pronunciation and form-meaning connection of second language (L2) words. Seventy-five Japanese learners of English were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions (reading while listening, reading only, listening only), studied 40 low-frequency words while viewing their corresponding…

This study investigates learner engagement in pedagogic task performance by triangulating multiple sources of data to gain insight into the cognitive and affective processes that take place on a range of tasks and how they engage learners of different target languages. The study provides a detailed analysis of 4 learners' second language (L2)…

Using the framework of conversation analysis, this study investigated the interactional workings of laughter in task-based interactions. The analysis was drawn from 160 cases of pair work interactions, collected in 2nd-semester Japanese-as-a-foreign-language classrooms. The pair work activities examined in this study are mostly grammar-focused,…

In light of popular nationalism on the rise in China and Japan, this inquiry develops and validates a survey instrument to document university students' motivation to learn Japanese in mainland China and explore how the learning of a foreign language may lead to better cross-cultural understanding. A total number of 398 Chinese learners of…

This study aimed to examine how second language (L2) readers process and comprehend paired sentences based on the causal and semantic relatedness of the sentences. Causal relatedness refers to the cause-and-effect relations between the events described, whereas semantic relatedness refers to the similarity of meaning conveyed by the sentences. In…

Although most second or foreign language classrooms can be assumed to contain queer learners, research shows that educators often fail to create inclusive learning environments and outcomes for these populations. A step toward improving this situation is to understand the factors affecting how queer students manage their identities in language…

Sociocognitive theory views learning, including second language acquisition, as the progressive "alignment" of individuals vis-à-vis their ecosocial environments. In this article we first update sociocognitive theory in light of recent evolutionary/ecological research on learning/teaching: (a) Humans are evolutionarily "adapted to…

Cognitive psychology research has shown that interleaving, wherein learners practice multiple skills or concepts at once, facilitates learning more than does blocking, wherein learners practice only one skill or concept at a time. Despite the advantage of interleaving over blocking observed across a number of domains, limited attention has been…

Within the framework of Conversation Analysis for Second Language Acquisition (CA-SLA), this study uses learning behavior tracking (LBT) (Markee, 2008) with longitudinal data to investigate word learning by one adult second language (L2) user of English. The adult is a first language (L1) user of Japanese with limited proficiency in English. Data…

This 4-year case study used a photo-elicitation approach to language learning history research in an individual case study of an Indonesian student's experiences of communities of practice while studying abroad in Japan. The study showed how the student's opportunities for interaction in Japanese were at first limited by his peripheral…

This study adopts Oxford's (2017) definition of language learning strategies (LLS) framed by self-regulation theory and explores the longitudinal development in the use of three second language (L2) writing strategies (global planning, local planning, L1-to-L2 translation) by Japanese university students as it interacts with cognitive, affective,…