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…

Previous research showed that short-term second language training modulates children's brain responses to language processing. However, little is known about whether short-term training from language-immersion apps would have the same effect on young children's neural processing of a newly learnt language. We examined the auditory event-related…

Memory is inherently context-dependent: internal and environmental cues become bound to learnt information, and the later absence of these cues can impair recall. Here, we developed an approach to leverage context-dependence to optimise learning of challenging, interference-prone material. While navigating through desktop virtual reality (VR)…

The burgeoning field of third language (L3) acquisition has increasingly focused on intermediate stages of language development, aiming to establish the groundwork for comprehensive models of L3 learning that encompass the entire developmental sequence. This article underscores the importance of a robust epistemological foundation, advocating for…

Adult learners of a new language (L2) tend not to achieve target-like knowledge and performance, so the cognitive status of L2s has long been debated. While monolingual native (L1) speakers robustly apply their grammatical knowledge to input as it unfolds, there are competing claims about whether L2 speakers also do so reflexively (Dekydtspotter,…

This study mainly examined the role of the combination of three senses (i.e., auditory, visual, and tactile) and five senses (i.e., auditory, visual, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory) in the correlation between electrophysiological and electrodermal responses underlying second language (L2) sentence comprehension. Forty subjects did two…

There is substantial behavioral evidence for a phenomenon commonly called "the testing effect", i.e. superior memory performance after repeated testing compared to re-study of to-be-learned materials. However, considerably less is known about the underlying neuro-cognitive processes that are involved in the initial testing phase, and…

Language is a quintessentially human trait. Many decades of neurolinguistic research provided evidence of neural structures which specialize in complex linguistic and cognitive processes supporting human communications. Because the world is multilingual, (Crystal, 2010; de Bot, 2019) a prominent question related to brain processes supporting…

Early childhood language experiences influence how a child's mind and brain process language and acquire literacy. For children growing up bilingual, their two languages interact in their minds, and these cross-linguistic influences can lead to unique neurocognitive mechanisms for language and reading compared to monolinguals. In this…

In the present study, we examined modulations of the second language (L2) positive emotion-label words, positive emotion-laden words, and neutral words on conflict processing in a flanker task. Twenty Chinese-English bilinguals were instructed to decide the color of the central words that were vertically surrounded by the same words with the same…

This study aimed to develop the pronunciation skills of students who learned Turkish as a foreign language and determine the extent of the instruction given for that purpose by observing its cognitive effects. It was designed as an in-class action research and carried out with nine students speaking different languages. Of those, five were…

For centuries, adults may have relied on pedagogies that promote rote memory for the learning of foreign languages through word associations and grammar rules. This contrasts sharply with child language learning which unfolds in socially interactive contexts. In this paper, we advocate an approach to study the social brain of language by grounding…

This case study examines whether or not an intervention in brain-based learning (BBL) brings about any change in language learning beliefs (LLBs) of adult EFL learners. Students enrolled in an English preparatory program were taught in accord with BBL principles over 16 weeks. Beliefs about language learning inventory (BALLI) was administered at…

This Event Related Potentials (ERP) study investigates auditory processing of sentences with so-called code-switches in Russian learners of German. It has often been argued that switching between two languages results in extra processing cost, although it is not completely clear yet what exactly causes these costs. ERP presents a good method to…

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…