Retrieval enhances subsequent memory more than restudy (i.e., the testing effect), demonstrating the encoding (or reencoding) effects of retrieval. It is important to delineate the nature of the encoding effects of retrieval especially in comparison to traditional encoding processes. The current study examined if the level of retrieval, analogous…

Shadowing, a practice of repeating what one hears as simultaneously and accurately as possible, has been researched in the Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) field for years. The research findings have shown that shadowing contributes to English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' bottom-up listening skills, which leads to…

Correct pronunciation of English words is of vital significance for mutual intelligibility in the EFL context. Despite its prominence in L2 learning, teachers of English cannot decide whether and how to implement pronunciation practice into their teaching practices. For this reason, pronunciation training is widely neglected in language classes or…

This study examines relative weighting of two acoustic cues, vowel duration and spectra, in the perception of high front vowels by Japanese learners of English. Studies found that Japanese speakers rely heavily on duration to distinguish /i?/ and [character omitted] in American English (AmE) as influenced by phonemic length in Japanese /ii/ and…

While both insight and divergent thinking tasks are used to study creativity, there are reasons to believe that the two may call upon very different mechanisms. To explore this hypothesis, we administered a verbal insight task (riddles) and a divergent thinking task (verbal fluency) to 16 native English speakers and 16 non-native English speakers…

This classroom research deals with pronunciation problems that Turkish EFL teacher candidates would encounter. The participants were 22 EFL pre-service teachers with B2 level of proficiency in English. The presentations which were carried out by these participants were analyzed both by the participants themselves and the researcher. The results…

The aim of the study was to explore the Finnish preservice and inservice teachers' knowledge of language constructs relevant for literacy acquisition. A total of 150 preservice teachers and 74 inservice teachers participated in the study by filling out a questionnaire that assessed self-perceived expertise in reading instruction, knowledge of…

The present study investigated a group of cognitive individual differences considered advantageous in second language learning and their role in language learning under implicit and explicit feedback conditions using both language awareness and language development measures. The study further investigated whether different types of awareness are…

The current study longitudinally examined the influence of aptitude on second language (L2) pronunciation development when 40 first-year Japanese university students engaged in practice activities inside and outside English-as-a-Foreign-Language classrooms over one academic year. Spontaneous speech samples were elicited at the beginning, middle,…

Corley, Brocklehurst, and Moat (2011) recently demonstrated a phonemic similarity effect for phonological errors in inner speech, claiming that it contradicted Oppenheim and Dell's (2008) characterization of inner speech as lacking subphonemic detail (e.g., features). However, finding "an effect" in both inner and overt speech is not the same as…

This study examined inexperienced listeners' perceptions of children's naturally produced /r/ sounds with reference to levels of accuracy determined by consensus between two expert clinicians. Participants rated /r/ sounds as fully correct, distorted or incorrect/non-rhotic. Second and third formant heights were measured to explore the…

Reading is a complex process involving numerous skills and abilities contributing to acquiring meaning from text. Individuals without the requisite reading skills will have difficulty not only in school but throughout their lifetimes. The purpose of the study was to compare the reading ability of incoming college freshmen with that of adults with…

This article provides a comprehensive quantitative analysis of misspellings in the writing of fluent Spanish heritage language (SHL) learners enrolled in a university-level Spanish course. The corpus consisted of a total of 21,322 words and 2492 misspellings, which were divided into four main categories and several subcategories. This paper…

The vast majority of adults with learning disabilities are those with deficits affecting reading decoding, reading and writing fluency, and spelling. Many adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD) also demonstrate problems with reading and writing. Documenting the underlying reasons for reading underachievement among these…

This paper describes early language development in a deaf Spanish child fitted with a cochlear implant (CI) when she was 1 year 6 months old. The girl had been exposed to Cued Speech (CS) since that age. The main aim of the research was to identify potential areas of slow language development as well as the potential benefit of CI and CS. At the…