Spanish and French majors at our small, private, Southern U.S. liberal arts institution must study abroad for an entire semester, yet students embark and return with widely disparate levels of language and intercultural learning. To more fully foster learning-laden semester-long study abroad experiences we changed the curriculum and now majors…

Over past decades, there has been a paradigm shift in WL instruction, moving away from traditional, grammar-based programs and toward instruction that promotes student proficiency in the target language. Despite this growing attention to proficiency-based instruction, few studies have investigated the relationship between proficiency-based…

Using a structural equation modeling approach, this study investigates the structural relationships between second language (L2) oral proficiency and interest in learning the target language (L2 interest), in the presence of potential mediating variables (i.e. perceived importance of speaking, out-of-class contact with L2 resources). It also…

In today's global world, many people can move across borders as travelling has become much easier in many ways. However, the securitization of borders has not been relaxed, implying that multilingual police-civilian interactions are becoming more 'commonplace'. Within the framework of conversation analysis, this article presents a novel study on…

Driven by the digital revolution in second language (L2) classrooms and broadened views on literacy, digital multimodal composing (DMC) has gained a robust growth of interests in the past decade. To illuminate the empirical landscape of this budding field, this paper provides a substantive and methodological review of 60 empirical L2 studies on…

Dual language immersion (DLI) as an alternative model to monolingual English-medium education has continued to expand rapidly over the past decade. As this model continues to grow across the United States, stakeholders look to research to demonstrate sustainability and scalability of dual language programs. Drawing on 224 schools, the statewide…

This classroom practice article explores the integration of TalkAbroad, an online language conversation platform, in an undergraduate World Languages Education program to support pre-service language teachers' oral proficiency development. Two pre-service teachers, facing challenges like family responsibilities and limited study abroad…

To date, most classroom-based research into the learning of a third language (L3) in the US has examined patterns of acquisition among various groups of bilinguals. Situated mainly within the context of "Portuguese for Spanish Speakers" (PSS), studies typically group learners based on the sequence / age of onset of their main background…

Though considerable professional discussion has focused on the integration of K-16 curricula, the level of oral proficiency with which students "enter" college and how that the entry level relates to college programs remains untested. The entry landscape is varied, complexified by the diverse curricula that students experience, in…

In my research I examine the linguistic practices of Moroccans in Spain, many of whom speak Moroccan Arabic as well as Modern Standard Arabic, Tamazight, French, English and Spanish at varying levels of proficiency. As part of my research, I conducted a 10-month linguistic ethnography. I was able to rely on my native English and near-native…

Usage-based approaches to additional-language acquisition have identified numerous determinants of language learning, two of which were the focus of our study: frequency and cue contingency. Specifically, we examined how an immersion experience may impact sensitivity to these two determinants as reflected in the production of 4,808 pairs of nouns…

The current study investigated advanced L2 learners' linguistic development before, during, and after a nine-month stay abroad, the extent to which contextual changes (home-abroad-home) influenced the nature and magnitude of development, and the ways in which relationships among different linguistic elements changed over time. Participants were 56…

Today's changing sociolinguistic reality of English calls for a shift in paradigm in the field of English language teaching. Therefore, this study aims to examine Moroccan EFL learners' (MEFLLs) attitudes towards World Englishes (WE) and native and non-native English-speaking teachers (NESTs & non-NESTs). Firstly, building on the assumption…

Foreign language learning is highly interactive and requires opportunities for academic speaking. The focus of this paper is how foreign language undergraduate students experienced this process in an online learning context. Through semi-structured interviews with seven undergraduate French, German and Spanish students, participants highlighted…

Using machine translation (MT) tools for language learning has become a common practice among language students in recent years. Studies have investigated how students use MT, how students and teachers perceive its benefits and drawbacks and how helpful it is for language learning. These studies indicate that students think MT tools are helpful in…