The current article studies the competencies of plurilingual students and how these competencies are exploited in the learning of French as a Foreign Language. Adopting a translanguaging theoretical approach, we argue that learners of foreign languages who already speak at least one other language have some linguistic competencies which manifest…

This longitudinal case study investigated the developmental trajectories of two participants enrolled in an ITA oral communication course at Purdue University. The course provides language support to the ITA population who play a crucial role in higher education programs in the U.S. (Gorsuch, 2016). Over four months (i.e., one semester), I…

In many parts of the world, learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) or English as a Second Language (ESL) often face language difficulties and challenges in their performance in learning. These challenges and errors have multiple forms and causes, covering various language and skills aspects. This study focuses on the types of grammatical…

The current study endeavours to examine the learning and comprehension patterns of English aspect categories by Yemeni EFL students in the different levels of undergraduate program at the English department, faculty of arts at Sana'a University. The data of the study were collected from a total of 120 students covering the four levels of…

An observable feature of learner language, linguistic variability, is described and used as the basis for speculating about an aspect of the process of second language learning. It is hypothesized that variation in correct use of target language forms varies as a function of the demands placed on the learner to produce these forms. Three groups of…

Research on the language development of children in immersion programs has uncovered a certain amount of data. Immersion students have less well developed productive skills than their francophone peers and passive receptive skills which approach those of francophones. Error analysis studies have found that immersion students reach a plateau in…

This paper analyzes spoken usage of English prepositions by two groups of Ontarian elementary students at the Grade 2 and Grade 5 levels. The first group (29 subjects) consists of bilingual Franco-Ontarian students from Welland and Sudbury. The second group (8 subjects) is composed of monolingual English students from Toronto. Examination of the…

Reports four experiments examining subject-verb agreement errors in Spanish and English. Discusses cross-linguistic differences within the framework of the computational model of grammatical encoding proposed by Kempen and Hoenkamp. Suggests that languages differ in the extent to which the selection of the verb is controlled by features on the…

The main concern of this report is the nature of the reliance by children on prior native language (L1) knowledge in naturalistic, untutored second language (L2) acquisition. It is suggested that L1 reliance is systematic, in that specific conditions have to be met within the child's L2 development before he or she will, or can, draw on previous…

This study presents an analysis of the successive steps used by Italian-speaking secondary school students to acquire mastery of the relative pronoun in standard French. This structure was chosen for study because the acquisition of the French relative pronoun is a source of difficulty for Italian learners. An analysis was made of the students…