Although audience plays an important role in all models of writing, there has been little research on how second language (L2) writers conceptualize and address their audience during the writing process. This study starts to address this research gap by examining when and how L2 learners consider their audience while writing in L2, as well as the…

Anxiety and L2 self-confidence have been suggested as vital determinants of willingness to communicate (WTC) in a foreign-language (FL) learning environment. Studies also demonstrate that it is a concern over pronunciation mistakes that is particularly likely to cause embarrassment and apprehension in FL students. Linking these two facts may lead…

Recent literature in second language (L2) perceived fluency has focused on English as a second language, with a primary reliance on impressions from native-speaker judges, leaving learners' self-perceptions of speech production unexplored. This study investigates the relationship between learners' and judges' perceptions of French fluency under…

Due to the growing number of plurilingual learners in the world today (Hammarberg, 2010), the present multiple case study examines four plurilingual participants' beliefs toward first language (L1) and second language (L2) mediation in the acquisition of French as a third language (L3). During a 16-week classroom-based study in a French university…

This study draws on sociocultural theory to explore how adult ESL learners interact with either a higher- or a lower-proficiency peer during pair problem solving, and how they each perceive the interactions with their partners. Three ESL learners engaged in a three-stage task: pair writing; pair noticing; and individual writing with two learners,…

Describes diverse aspects of the speaking proficiency of novice-low to novice-mid level foreign language in the elementary school students and to identify the syntactic knowledge underlying such behavior. Data were collected from students who had been studying Japanese continually for 6 and 7 years on a variety of oral production tasks.…