Children's spatial activities and parental spatial talk were measured to examine their associations with variability in preschoolers' spatial skills (N = 113, Mage = 4 years, 4 months; 51% female; 80% White, 11% Black, and 9% other). Parents who reported more diversity in daily spatial activities and used longer spatial talk utterances during a…

Student-centered instruction is a shared goal in English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL) settings that embrace communicative language teaching (CLT) principles (East 2015). Student-centered classrooms create opportunities for learners to have consistent and meaningful interactions--two-way exchanges of ideas--using their second language…

This paper presents an argument for how second language acquisition (SLA) research should be carried out if a researcher is genuinely interested in learner grammar (i.e., knowledge of language), its acquisition and use. SLA research has expanded greatly over many years and currently spans many subfields, but researchers share one main goal: to…

Some of the key challenges in teaching intercultural communication (IC) are to engage learners in activities which develop their critical intercultural awareness and to prepare them for communication in superdiverse (Vertovec, 2007) contexts. This paper discusses linguistic landscapes (LL) as an innovative method for teaching intercultural…

Oral input has long been recognised as a key factor influencing second language acquisition in early childhood. Children rely heavily on oral input to learn new words and develop phonological awareness of a language. However, in the context of English teaching in Hong Kong kindergartens -- which feature diversity in language use in the classroom…

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of social media language learning activities with traditional language learning activities on the development of L2 grammatical competence in two English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes at a Taiwanese university. The study was grounded in four bodies of knowledge: (a) the…