The present study utilizes readings taken from texts in social psychology to examine the effects by gender of embedded "what" questions and elaborative "why" questions on reading comprehension. During regular class time, 97 advanced second language (L2) learners of Spanish read two different vignettes, either with or without…

The aim of this study was to explore pragmalinguistic strategies employed by a group of Iranian English language learners when making refusals to invitations, requests, offers and suggestions in their first (Persian) and second (English) languages. Data were collected from 86 participants through a Discourse Completion Test (DCT). The social…

This study investigates whether native Hmong speakers' first language (L1) lexical tone experience facilitates or interferes with their perception of Mandarin tones and whether training is effective for perceptual learning of second (L2) tones. In Experiment 1, 3 groups of beginning level learners of Mandarin with different L1 prosodic background…

This study used ERP (event-related potentials) to examine both the role of the L1 and the role of individual differences in the processing of agreement violations. Theories of L2 acquisition differ with regard to whether or not native-like acquisition of L2 features is possible (Schwartz and Sprouse, 1994, 1996; Tsimpli and Mastropavlou, 2007),…

This preliminary study examined the effect of proficiency and study abroad experience on L2 learners' ability to produce routines. Participants were 64 Japanese students in an English-medium university in Japan. They were divided into three groups: Group 1 had lower proficiency with no study abroad experience, Group 2 had higher proficiency but no…

This paper examines the differences between second-language learners and heritage learners of Russian in terms of their linguistic performance, a finding supported by current research (Andrews, 2001; Kagan & Dillon, 2001/2003), examines the implications of these differences for the creation of testing tools, and offers a sample of a test designed…

From its origins over three decades ago, interest in the field of Spanish as a heritage language (SHL) has grown and has produced a wealth of research. While our understanding of the sociolinguistic profile of Spanish heritage language learners has increased and we have advanced in our knowledge of the linguistic abilities and strategies Spanish…

Purpose: This research was aimed at showing the impact of a teaching strategy called the Quantum Teaching Strategy on students' academic achievements in two school subjects, namely in Bahasa Indonesia and Science, in comparison to that experienced through classes using a conventional teaching strategy. This research also examined the role of…

This study examines vocabulary growth rates in first and second languages for Spanish-speaking and Cantonese-speaking English language learners from kindergarten through second grade. Growth-modeling results show a within-language effect of concepts about print on vocabulary. Language exposure also had an effect on English vocabulary: earlier…

Recent studies reported reductions of well-established biases in decision making under risk, such as the framing effect, during foreign language (FL) use. These modulations were attributed to the use of FL itself, which putatively entails an increase in emotional distance. A reduced framing effect in this setting, however, might also result from…

Is it best to learn reading in two languages simultaneously or sequentially? We observed second- and third-grade children in two-way "dual-language learning contexts": (a) 50:50 or Simultaneous dual-language (two languages within same developmental period) and (b) 90:10 or Sequential dual-language (one language, followed gradually by the other).…

Across the globe, educational tests are being used at a rapidly increasing rate. More recently, educational tests are being used to inform educational policy and for holding educators accountable for student learning. One reason educational assessments are used for these important purposes is that they are considered to provide reliable and…

This study investigated the effects of differing densities of glossing on the uptake of target words and the comprehension of idea units from a reading text. The focus was whether different densities of glossing would create trade-off effects. Thirty-three Malaysian ESL learners were assigned to three different conditions: high-density glossing,…

This report presents work on the development of a new corpus of non-native English writing. It will be useful for the task of native language identification, as well as grammatical error detection and correction, and automatic essay scoring. In this report, the corpus is described in detail.

Grammar instruction is at the center of the target language (TL) and code-switching debate. Discussion revolves around whether grammar should be taught in the TL or using the TL and the native language (L1). This study investigated the effects of French-only grammar instruction and French/English grammar instruction on elementary-level students'…