Although measures of lexical complexity are well established for printed texts, there is currently no equivalent work for videos. This study, therefore, aims to investigate whether existing lexical complexity measures can be extended to predict second language (L2) learners' judgment of video difficulty. Using a corpus of 320 instructional videos,…

The present study sets out to measure Turkish EFL learners' receptive affix knowledge and productive derivative vocabulary knowledge. More specifically, the extent to which Turkish EFL learners recognize written form of affixes, know the meaning of affixes and determine the part of speech of the derivatives produced by means of affixes and how…

The substantive component of construct validity requires a confrontation between empirical test results and content relevance. The Vocabulary Size Test (VST) has been extensively validated in terms of empirical results. Less is known, however, about expert judgments of content relevance. The VST was constructed and validated according to the…

The importance of input on language learning cannot be overstated. One method of providing input to learners at a level that is appropriate for them is called extensive reading, in which learners read an abundance of texts. In practice, for learners of English as a second or foreign language, these texts are often books that have been written and…

Word frequency has a long history of being considered the most important predictor of word difficulty and has served as a guideline for several aspects of second language vocabulary teaching, learning, and assessment. However, recent empirical research has challenged the supremacy of frequency as a predictor of word difficulty. Accordingly,…

This study investigates the use of high-frequency cognitive verbs - think and believe - in Turkish L2 learners' interlanguage, both in terms of their verb senses and complementation patterns. In line with this purpose, a Sentence Production Task consisting of context-independent items and a Sentence Completion Task consisting of context-dependent…

We assessed the relationship between word-to-text-integration (WTI) and reading comprehension in 7th grade students (n = 441) learning English as a second language (L2). The students performed a self-paced WTI reading task in Fall (T1) and Spring (T2), consisting of three text manipulation types (anaphora resolution, argument overlap, anomaly…

Current second language (L2) listening research has lacked detailed accounts of L2 listeners' difficulties comprehending texts comprising orthographically known lexis. In the current study, 15 first language (L1) Japanese English language learners of three English proficiency levels listened to sentences and a narrative text. A two-task diagnostic…

Frequency is often the only variable considered when researchers or teachers develop vocabulary materials for second language (L2) learners. However, researchers have also found that many other variables affect vocabulary acquisition. In this study, we explored the relationship between L2 vocabulary acquisition and a variety of lexical…

Collocations are words that often arbitrarily cluster in a particular language context (e.g., make progress). Native Arabic learners of English often find difficulty using English collocations in their English discourse. This is probably because such expressions, though occurring in Arabic, are not as frequently used as they are in English.…

Vocabulary size measures serve important functions, not only with respect to placing learners at appropriate levels on language courses but also with a view to examining the progress of learners. One of the widely reported formats suitable for these purposes is the Yes/No vocabulary test. The primary aim of this study was to introduce and provide…

This study aims to exemplify how language teaching can benefit from learner corpus research (LCR). To this end, this study determines how L1 and L2 English speakers with diverse L1 backgrounds differ with respect to adjective amplification, based on the "International Corpus of Learner English" (ICLE) and the "Louvain Corpus of…

Spelling is a language problem-space, not only a school subject. Successful spelling demands going beyond letter to sound mapping and gaining access to a full representation of the orthographic structure of words. We traced bilingual Catalan/Spanish speakers' spelling performance in Catalan across elementary school in two tasks: isolated words to…

Vocabulary learning materials and vocabulary learning research have a common objective of promoting effective vocabulary instruction (Schmitt, 2008), but in practice vocabulary learning materials tend to reflect materials writers' repertoire and intuition primarily (Tomlinson, 2011). In an effort to develop a stronger interface between research…

Simple English Wikipedia is a user-contributed online encyclopedia intended for young readers and readers whose first language is not English. We compiled a corpus of the entirety of Simple English Wikipedia as of June 20th, 2017. We used lexical frequency profiling tools to investigate the vocabulary size needed to comprehend Simple English…