Predictive inference is the anticipation of the likely consequences of events described in a text. This study investigated predictive inference generation during second language (L2) reading, with a focus on the effects of strategy instructions. In this experiment, Japanese university students read several short narrative passages designed to…

A self-paced reading and translation task was used with learners of English as a second language (L2) to explore what sorts of information L2 learners use during online comprehension compared to native speakers, and how task (reading for comprehension vs. translation) and proficiency affect L2 comprehension. Thirty-six Korean native speakers of…

We investigated the influence of word class and translation ambiguity on cross-linguistic representation and processing. Bilingual speakers of English and Spanish performed translation production and translation recognition tasks on nouns and verbs in both languages. Words either had a single translation or more than one translation. Translation…

This study aimed to describe the writing activities that test takers engage in when responding to the writing tasks in the "TOEFL iBT"[superscript R] test and to examine the effects of task type and test-taker English language proficiency (ELP) and keyboarding skills on the frequency and distribution of these activities. Each of 22 test…

This study aimed to seek an in-depth understanding about English collocation learning and the development of learner autonomy through investigating a group of English as a Second Language (ESL) learners' perspectives and practices in their learning of English collocations using an AWARE approach. A group of 20 PRC students learning English in…

This study investigates whether adult second language learners' online processing of "wh"-dependencies is constrained by island constraints on movement. Proficiency-matched Spanish and Korean learners of English completed a grammaticality judgment task and a stop-making-sense task designed to examine their knowledge of the relative…

Discourse connectives are important indicators of textual coherence, and mastering them is an essential part of acquiring a language. In this article, we compare advanced learners' sensitivity to the meaning conveyed by connectives in an off-line grammaticality judgment task and an on-line reading experiment using eye-tracking. We also assess the…

Voxy, an English-language-learning company, has developed a custom, in-house proficiency exam, the Voxy Proficiency Assessment (VPA), which is given to all learners at the beginning and end of their courses. Using Multinomial Logistic Regression (MLR), the impact of covariates, such as total learning activities completed and total number of…

By administering a Stroop task to college-student bilinguals varied in self-rated first- (L1) and second-language (L2) proficiency, the current study examined the effects of L1 and L2 proficiencies on selective attention performance. We conducted ex-Gaussian analyses to capture the modal and positive-tail components of participants' reaction time…

In highly proficient, early bilinguals, behavioural studies of the cost of switching language or task suggest qualitative differences between language control and domain-general cognitive control. By contrast, several neuroimaging studies have shown an overlap of the brain areas involved in language control and domain-general cognitive control.…

This article investigates how adult Korean-speaking learners of English interpret English definite descriptions ("the book," "the books") and demonstrative descriptions ("that book," "those books"). Korean lacks articles, but has demonstratives, and it is hypothesized that transfer leads learners to (initially) equate definites with…

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…

Dual-system models suggest that English past tense morphology involves two processing routes: rule application for regular verbs and memory retrieval for irregular verbs. In second language (L2) processing research, Ullman suggested that both verb types are retrieved from memory, but more recently Clahsen and Felser and Ullman argued that past…

"Metasyntactic Ability" (MSA) refers to the conscious reflection about syntactic aspects of language and the deliberate control of these aspects (Gombert, 1992). It appears from previous studies that heritage-language learners tend to demonstrate lower MSA than their monolingual counterparts (Lesaux & Siegel, 2003). In the present study, we…

This paper aims to give an overview of a cooperation project launched three years ago, under which students who study Swedish at two universities across the Baltic Sea have a chance to complete a part of relevant courses in their study programmes together in an online course. The primary goals of joint studying are: to encourage students from…