This study is the first to examine contributions of proficiency subskills to pragmatic development. We used the latent growth curve modeling to reveal the causal relationships between proficiency subskills and pragmatic competence in 109 American learners of Chinese across two data points over three months abroad in China. Proficiency was measured…

This book focuses on English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and provides advice on how to approach EFL teaching in the online context. Coronavirus has accelerated e-learning significantly and has highlighted the need of appropriate web tools that will allow teachers to present their material either synchronously or asynchronously, while also…

This study investigates the effects of multimedia glosses on text recall and incidental vocabulary learning in a mobile-assisted L2 listening task. A total of 88 participants with a low level of proficiency in English were randomly assigned to one of four conditions that involved single channel (textual-only, pictorial-only) and dual-channel…

The results of a self-paced reading study with advanced German, Dutch and French second language (L2) learners of English showed that their online comprehension of early closure (EC) sentences which are initially misanalysed by native English speakers (e.g. "While John hunted the frightened rabbit escaped") was affected by whether or…

This study examined how longitudinal interaction impacts the development of second language (L2) oral proficiency in relation to learners' different experience and proficiency levels. Japanese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) participated in weekly conversation exchanges with native speakers (NSs) in the USA via videoconferencing…

The use of integrated tasks to test English-speaking skills raises questions about the impact of comprehension on test score outcomes, and the impact of stimulus materials on test-taker strategic behaviours. This study analysed speaking performances and verbal report data to examine the strategies used by test takers at different levels of…

Previous studies have shown that multilingual speakers are influenced by their native (L1) and non-native (L2) grammars when learning a new language. But, so far, these studies have mostly used untimed metalinguistic tasks. Here we examine whether multilinguals' prior grammars also affect their sensitivity to morphosyntactic constraints during…

The use of English-origin spontaneous loanwords (e.g., "la babysitter," "el counter," etc.) in otherwise Spanish discourse is criticized by many as a strategy that bilinguals use to compensate for a lack of lexical knowledge in Spanish. The purpose of the current research is to examine the question of lexical proficiency as a…

Task-based language teaching on the purpose of enhancing students' communicative skills and involving them actively in the authentic context has long been highlighted in recent years in tertiary English language teaching. This paper proposes a framework of task-based teaching approach and language assessment in intensive reading class based on the…

The vast development of digital technology and the widespread use of social network platforms have reshaped how we live in the world. For L2 learners to maximally utilize their language proficiency to function effectively as members of modern society, they need not only the necessary L2 knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) but also essential…

This study examined perceptions of students of the benefits of consciousness-raising tasks (CRT) and communicative tasks (CT) when compared with actual learning outcomes in a Saudi secondary school context. Qualitative data were collected from 60 Saudi speaking learners of English, at various proficiency levels, who had engaged in a sequence of…

The United States is formally represented around the world by approximately 14,000 Foreign Service officers and other personnel in the U.S. Department of State. Roughly one-third of them are required to be proficient in the local languages of the countries to which they are posted. To achieve this language proficiency for its staff, the State…

This study tests the hypothesis that late first-language English / second-language Spanish learners (L1 English / L2 Spanish learners) acquire spirantization in stages according to the prosodic hierarchy (Zampini, 1997, 1998). In Spanish, voiced stops [b d g] surface after a pause or nasal stop, and continuants [ß? ð? ??] surface postvocalically,…

This paper reports the findings of a study investigating the relationship of executive working memory (WM) and phonological short-term memory (PSTM) to fluency and self-repair behavior during an unrehearsed oral task performed by second language (L2) speakers of English at two levels of proficiency, elementary and lower intermediate. Correlational…

This study investigates the degree to which native-English-speaking learners of Spanish can generate expectations for information likely to occur in upcoming portions of an unfolding linguistic signal. We examine Spanish clitic left dislocation, a long-distance dependency between a topicalized object and an agreeing clitic, whose felicity depends…