Extensive reading has long been considered as a potent means for facilitating language acquisition for second language learners, especially in the contexts of primary and secondary schools where students are elementary or intermediate learners. In one of the universities in Hong Kong where English is used as a medium of instruction, the…

In recent years there has been growing awareness about a sub-group of students labeled "Long-Term English Language Learners" (LTELLs). Our study seeks to show how students who fall within the LTELL category see themselves through the lens of their lived experiences as (emergent) bilinguals, students, family/community members and…

Research suggests that a majority of elementary school teachers do not feel confident in their ability to teach English language learners. Moreover, teachers and teacher candidates are often presented as a monolithic group of middle-class, monolingual women with relatively few experiences with people from diverse backgrounds. Accordingly, this…

This research investigates cross-linguistic influence in the comprehension of L3 French past tense. A close examination was made on the L1 (Chinese) and L2 (English) transfer patterns among 20 English majors in their early acquisition of L3 French passé compose (PC). Data were collected through introspective think-aloud protocol in a comprehension…

Mostly learners and even teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) are still not able to speak grammatically and fluently just because they lack of the Indonesian language proficiency and comprehension. This research was done to investigate how the Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) can assist the teachers and learners of EFL in improving their…

This sociolinguistic-variationist investigation sheds light on two little-studied issues concerning Spanish DOM, or variable use of a before animate "direct objects" (DOs), in vernacular language: the complex interaction of co-occurring linguistic (type of verb; definiteness, specificity, grammatical number, topicality, type and…

In 3 experiments, we investigated the effect of grammatical gender on object categorization. Participants were asked to judge whether 2 objects, whose names did or did not share grammatical gender, belonged to the same semantic category by pressing a key. Monolingual speakers of English (Experiment 1), Italian (Experiments 1 and 2), and Spanish…

Presently it is hard to find a thesis which have presented the teaching plan on how to teach the tense to Chinese learners on the spot of learning and even the textbooks in classes cover the subject of tense only in the medium or high level. The author considers that the learners' mistakes on the subject of tense are apt to be fossilized, if they…

Haznedar (2007) argues that longitudinal data from a child learner of English who has Turkish as a first language (L1) constitute a counterexample to the Aspect Hypothesis. In this commentary, we show that her argument is not warranted because the Aspect Hypothesis does not presuppose that tense is defective, contra her claim. However, Haznedar's…

A previous study reported that, similar to young and adult skilled readers, Italian developmental dyslexics read pseudowords made up of a root and a derivational suffix faster and more accurately than simple pseudowords. Unlike skilled readers, only dyslexic and reading-matched younger children benefited from morphological structure in reading…

ERPs were used to explore the different patterns of processing of cognate and noncognate words in the first (L1) and second (L2) language of a population of second language learners. L1 English students of French were presented with blocked lists of L1 and L2 words, and ERPs to cognates and noncognates were compared within each language block. For…

While the extant literature has highlighted the important contribution of home literacy experiences to early literacy development, limited research has been carried out among children living in postcolonial contexts, where there is a mismatch between the home and school language. Such is the case of Mauritius. The present exploratory case study…

A controversial topic in research on second-language acquisition is whether residual variability and optionality in high-proficiency late second-language (L2) learners is merely the outcome of cross-linguistic transfer, competition, and processing limitations, or whether late learners have an underlying representational deficit due to maturational…

Mixtecos, members of an Indigenous group from Mexico, have settled in large numbers in New York. Their children are found in bilingual classrooms (Spanish-English), but little is known about parent-school interactions. This work describes the educational ideologies that 23 Mixteco mothers shared during 5 focus group interviews distributed across 9…

The amount of second language (L2) use has significant influence on native speakers' comprehension of L2 learners' speech. Nonetheless, few empirical studies examine how differences in the amount of language use affect the intelligibility and comprehensibility of nonnative speakers' reading and spontaneous speech. This study aims to contribute to…