This study explored second language (L2) competence in discontinuous discursive formulaic sequences, namely Chinese correlative connectives (CCCs; e.g. yinwei . . . suy 'because . . . so'), in relation to the determinants of formulaic sequence acquisition by scrutinizing L2 Chinese learners' performance on two controlled tasks. Mixed-effects…

Children's oral language skills at the earliest stages of education are known to determine their success at school later on. Improving oral language skills is achievable through targeted intervention, and drama can be an effective intervention medium, but its potential has not been extensively evaluated to date. The present study piloted an…

This study investigates the relationships among working memory (WM), syntactic parsing ability (SP), and L2 reading performance across varying proficiency levels. A cohort of 120 L1-Persian EFL learners was categorized into beginner, intermediate, and advanced proficiency groups based on their IELTS scores. Participants completed a reading span…

Given the accumulating evidence about audiovisual input as a valuable resource from which knowledge of multiword expressions (MWEs) can be built up incidentally, the next inquiry arises as to what can be done to promote MWE uptake from this resource. Despite the increasing popularity of bilingual subtitles as a form of on-screen text, their…

Purpose: This study builds a new system for automatically assessing learners' speech elicited from an oral discourse completion task (DCT), and evaluates the prediction capability of the system with a view to better understanding factors deemed influential in predicting speaking proficiency scores and the pedagogical implications of the system.…

Event concepts of common verbs (e.g. "eat," "sleep") can be broadly shared across languages, but a given language's rules for subcategorization are largely arbitrary and vary substantially across languages. When subcategorization information does not match between first language (L1) and second language (L2), how does this…

This study investigates whether there are different first-language-second-language (L1-L2) dependency resolutions by focusing on less-studied crosslinguistic variances in L2 acquisition of Chinese, a null-subject language, by speakers of English, a non-null-subject language. The overt subject pronoun of a Chinese main clause has free orientation…

The present study investigated whether parent--child interactions during shared reading in a diverse sample of 91 three- to five-year-old dual language learners (DLLs) in Norway supported the development of the children's first (L1) and second language (L2) vocabulary skills. The dyads spoke 11 different L1s (i.e., Arabic, Polish, Somali, and…

Years of teaching experience have long been taken as an important indicator of teacher and school quality in primary and secondary schools. However, research on the effects of teacher years of experience on student outcomes has shown mixed results. To investigate the source of variation causing these mixed results, this study examined a broad…

This study examines the role of receptive vocabulary knowledge on outcomes of the TOEFL reading comprehension task. Participants included 18 native speakers of Spanish learning English as a foreign language and 17 native speakers of English ranging in age from 19-25 years. Lexical stimuli were presented auditorily and were divided into…

Language placement test serve with multiple purposes to measure the language abilities and performance of language learners to place them in the most appropriate language course with curriculum that best meets the language needs. There is the need to assess appropriately the Spanish heritage language learners' (SHLLs) abilities at the high-school…

The purpose of this research is to evaluate secondary school Turkish language assessment tools in the sense of PISA reading skills criteria. To this end, document analysis, one of qualitative research methods, was employed in the current study. The research data were collected from 82 assessment tools prepared by 23 teachers. The questions…

Measuring learning outcomes on core skills is key to building evidence on which teaching and learning interventions are most effective, and ultimately informing policy that prioritises these skills, amongst early learners. However, developing national or systems-level assessments pose considerable challenges, including implementing an effective…

As a part of a more extensive computerized dynamic assessment (CDA) project delivered through a dedicated website, www.lingeli.com, this study explores EFL learners' perspectives on an online listening comprehension dynamic assessment software focusing on inferential listening skills while trying to minimize the guessing effect. The study…

Millions of public-school students in the United States are identified as English language learners (ELLs), whose academic success is tied to their second language (L2) English education. Previous research in adult populations indicates that L2 proficiency is related to the contextual variable of the prevalence of one's first language (L1) among…