This article explores French L1 speakers' attitudes toward French L2 speakers' negation use. Negation in prescriptive grammars calls for a pre-verbal ne and a post-verbal element like "pas." Although orally "ne" deletion is frequent, it is rarely or never taught. One common, albeit meagerly supported, explanation is that L1…

Conceptual Metaphor (CM; e.g., Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, 1999; Kovecses, 2020) is central to our thinking and ubiquitously manifested in our language. Given its importance, the teaching of conceptual metaphors has gained much attention in Cognitive Linguistics and Applied Linguistics. While most empirical studies have focused on specific aspects…

This study uses a complexity-accuracy-lexis-fluency (CALF) framework to explore performance on 2 speaking tasks: a narrative picture-based task and an interactive decision-making task. A preliminary aim is to compare performance on the 2 tasks, using a wide range of CALF measures to explore where scores are similar and where they are different.…

The purpose of this article is to present qualitative and quantitative tools to assist teachers and authors of examination materials in their preliminary assessment of text complexity/difficulty according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. The qualitative scales were compiled specially for this study, based on previous…

The present study investigates the effectiveness of consciousness-raising approach in interpreting conversational implicature using audiovisual input. The study was conducted on 126 Saudi female students at the Department of English Language and Literature at AlImam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh. The experimental group was…

This paper provides an example of close analysis of student attempts to fill the gaps that comprise a "cloze" test. Such analysis may assist diagnosis of the difficulties that groups of students experience with specific text in particular contexts and illustrate the impact of those difficulties. The paper briefly touches on the…

A study was designed to develop a number of tests of oral proficiency and to compare those tests with the existing, highly subjective testing method used at the end of secondary school in Israel. The study used four experimental tests: the oral interview, role playing, reporting task, and group discussion. The experimental tests were analyzed for…

THIS STUDY SOUGHT (1) TO CLARIFY THE TERM "LANGUAGE APTITUDE," (2) TO BETTER DEFINE ITS RELATIONSHIP TO INTELLIGENCE, AND (3) TO DETERMINE THE ROLE OF SOCIOECONOMIC LEVEL IN THIS RELATIONSHIP. SUBJECTS WERE SIXTH-GRADE PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS, 93 OF WHOM WERE MIDDLE CLASS AND 39 LOWER CLASS. SOCIAL CLASS WAS DETERMINED BY THE OTIS DUDLEY…

Compares conversational styles of intermediate and advanced learners of English as a Second Language in language proficiency interviews. The article describes differences in amount of talk and rate of speaking, extent of context dependence and ability to construct and sustain narratives, but not in frequency of initiation of new topics nor…