Second-language (L2) knowledge of English is an essential communication tool in the contemporary era of globalization in many research and business fields. Among the important tasks in English education is the measurement of student proficiency. While various tests purport to measure proficiency in learning English, repeated preparation and…

This study examined how Mandarin-speaking preschoolers with and without a history of late talking (LT) process familiar monosyllabic words with unexpected lexical tones, focusing on both phonological and semantic violations. This study initially enrolled 64 Mandarin-speaking toddlers: 31 with a history of LT (mean age: 27.67 months) and 33 without…

Embodied models of language comprehension assume that words become associated with sensorimotor experiences during word learning. Novel word learning paradigms may provide insight into embodied effects, but studies in this domain have yet to account for how concepts and information known in first language (L1) might influence the sensorimotor…

In today's globalized world, strong English listening skills have become more essential than ever before. Whether you're a language learner, a professional conducting business internationally, or a traveler exploring new cultures, the ability to understand spoken English is an asset. Fortunately, advancements in technology have opened new avenues…

A growing body of research has provided evidence for the foreign language effect on thinking, notably decision-making. Our prior work found reduction of recency effect following positive feedback in a foreign language as compared to the native tongue during even-probability gambling. However, the fundamental mechanisms underlying this effect…

How do early bilingual experiences influence children's neural architecture for word processing? Dual language acquisition can yield common influences that may be shared across different bilingual groups, as well as language-specific influences stemming from a given language pairing. To investigate these effects, we examined bilingual English…

Event-related potentials (ERPs) have become widespread in second language acquisition (SLA) research and a growing body of literature has been produced in recent years. We surveyed 61 SLA papers that use ERPs to study L2 sentence processing in healthy late learners. Our main aim was to provide a critical summary of findings from the decade…

Language proficiency diagnosis is essential to extract fine-grained information about the linguistic knowledge states and skill mastery levels of test takers based on their performance on language tests. Different from comprehensive standardized tests, many language learning apps often revolve around word-level questions. Therefore, knowledge…

We used event-related potentials to investigate how markedness impacts person agreement in English-speaking learners of L2-Spanish. Markedness was examined by probing agreement with both first-person (marked) and third-person (unmarked) subjects. Agreement was manipulated by crossing first-person subjects with third-person verbs and vice versa.…

Purpose: Although acquisition of Chinese lexical tones by second language (L2) learners has been intensively investigated, very few studies focused on categorical perception (CP) of lexical tones by highly proficient L2 learners. This study was designed to address this issue with behavioral and electrophysiological measures. Method: Behavioral…

This study explored appropriate speaking activities for speakers of different proficiency levels by measuring the changes in their brain blood flow with near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Fifty adult speakers and learners of English of various proficiency levels participated in the study by undertaking four types of task: a single-speaker picture…

The past decade has witnessed a plethora of research to study the relationship between reading strategies and reading comprehension, but few studies have examined the brain functionality; more specifically the relationship between hemispheric dominance and reading strategies. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate whether there would be any…

The goal of the present study was to examine differences in cortical thickness, cortical surface area, and subcortical volume between bilingual children who are highly proficient in two languages (i.e., English and Spanish) and bilingual children who are mainly proficient in one of the languages (i.e., Spanish). All children (N = 49) learned…

The English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' levels of attention and meditation as well as brainwaves while interacting with an interlocutor in three different second-language (L2) socialization contexts--with another human in person, with another person through a virtual platform, and with an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot--were…

Cognitive flexibility (switching) and control (inhibition) are among widely accepted cognitive advantages of bilingualism. Switch Cost (SC), i.e., the time difference to complete a switch versus non-switch task, is a construct for measuring the switching ability. The need to control the interference and switching between one's languages leads to…