We investigate whether second language (L2) learners of English rely on first language (L1) transfer and atomicity in the acquisition of the count/mass distinction by examining L1-French and L1-Chinese learners of English. Atomicity encodes whether a noun contains 'atoms' or minimal elements that retain the property of the noun. As a semantic…

The second language (L2) acquisition of tense, aspect, and mood/modality (TAM) has been widely explored as it holds the promise of a better understanding of the L2 learners' linguistic competences, particularly semantically and morpho-syntactically. This study focuses on the acquisition of the subjunctive mood by L1 English learners of L2 French…

The terms used to designate ordinary relational identities seem easy to learn and translate. However, these interpersonal identities reflect complex mental constructs that are very sensitive to the variables that interact in human communication, particularly cultural variation. This paper describes a pilot project developed at the University of…

The extent to which learners benefit from instruction may be largely dependent on their individual abilities. However, there is relatively little work on the interaction between instructional effectiveness in second language learning and learner individual factors. In this study, we investigated the relationship between instruction, individual…

This article provides results of analysis of data collected from online Spanish-medium subject courses taught in Spanish by the same teacher to students whose first language is English. The students are at a high-intermediate to advanced level (B2-C1), and are enrolled at an American university in Madrid in courses centring on topics of Spanish…

This article provides results of analysis of data collected from online Spanish-medium subject courses taught in Spanish by the same teacher to students whose first language is English. The students are at a high-intermediate to advanced level (B2-C1), and are enrolled at an American university in Madrid in courses centring on topics of Spanish…

Among various study topics of advanced second language (L2) learners, mental lexicon shares a unique significance. This paper will introduce a comparative experiment between advanced Chinese English as a Second Language (CESL) learners and English as first language (EL1) speakers. The research question of the study is whether advanced CESL…

The study investigates whether advanced second language (L2) learners can extend beyond the grammatical properties of the first language (L1) to successfully acquire tense and aspect. We examine the acquisition of the semantics of the imperfective marker "te-iru" in Japanese by native speakers of Mandarin Chinese, a language that…

Reports on an activity carried out with upper-intermediate and advanced level English-as-Second-Language learners to help them increase their word-meaning awareness and expand their active vocabulary. (Author/VWL)