An important issue in second-language acquisition concerns the role of explicit information (EI) and how it is affected by individual differences. The present study explored this question through a partial replication and extension of Fernández (2008: Experiment 2), which investigated the effects of EI in processing instruction (PI) for the…

This paper presents data capturing Korean university students' familiarity with English online acronyms, examines factors that may predict this familiarity, and presents an explicit instruction intervention involving vocabulary knowledge of online acronyms. The Vocabulary Size Test (VST) measured students' vocabulary size, while a self-report…

At some upper secondary schools in Sweden, newly arrived migrant youths can attend vocational courses while studying in the language introduction programme. The teaching practices in relation to language learning for newly arrived migrant students in this kind of school-based VET and how these practices are conditioned are investigated in the…

A great deal of research explores how implicit vs. explicit instruction affects second language learners' grammatical accuracy, generally finding that explicit instruction increases accuracy. However, no research to date has examined the impact of implicit/explicit instruction on learners' fluency. Additionally, nearly all the research has only…

Investigations of crosslinguistic effects in second language acquisition (SLA) have contributed rich understandings about the ways in which prior language knowledge and experience can influence additional language learning. Building on this work, one recent line of research has examined the extent to which SLA findings about crosslinguistic…

Following the social turn in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) in the 1990s (Block, 2003), researchers have increasingly focused on the emic perspective of learners. As a result, identity, subjectivity, and agency have come to the forefront in SLA research. In an effort to afford learners the means to negotiate meaning more freely and to position…

The current study compares the effects of two types of pronunciation instruction (segmental- and suprasegmental-based) on the development of second-year Chinese undergraduate students' English pronunciation as against a group with no specific pronunciation (NSP) instruction. The participants were 90 university-level students in the Chinese…

Having historically received less attention than other linguistic structures (Derwing & Munro, 2005), second language (L2) pronunciation instruction represents an emergent area of research in the field (Thomson & Derwing, 2015). While several methods have been shown to be effective for improving L2 segmental production, including explicit…

In the present article, I revisit the ongoing controversy surrounding the use of translation in the foreign language classroom in general. I begin by defining the concept of 'translation' arguing that translation can be understood either as a method or as a means and that it is exactly the ambiguity of the term that has led to the current debate…

The present study explores lexical collocations and their relation to speaking proficiency of Taiwanese EFL college students learning English for academic purposes (i.e., EAP). The data is obtained from 92 English majors at a national university of science and technology in southern Taiwan. The results show that: (a) direct collocation instruction…

Research suggests that individual differences in additional language learning may play a more important role in taxing situations when learners are confronted with unfamiliar or difficult tasks. However, studies to date have mostly focused on second language (L2) learners/bilinguals, while individual differences within multilingual populations…

The purpose of the article is to prove theoretically and check experimentally the effectiveness of explicit models for language learning strategies based on the instructions in the process of professionally oriented English communication. The hypothesis of the research implies that the level of professional English communicative competence will…

This study utilized textual analysis to investigate 27 articles published by Japanese scholars from various disciplines regarding constructivist approaches. The results found that many of the collected articles in this study reported the need for and effectiveness of a constructivist approach in language, STEM, and social sciences education. The…

This study examines whether ten weeks of direct instruction of affixes with online systems can improve learners' knowledge of affixes by using Affix Master 10 (AM10), a collection of online self-study materials developed by the current researchers. The aim of AM10 is to let students comprehensively learn 30 prefixes and 31 suffixes. The two…

This study examined the effectiveness of using self-assessment and explicit strategy instruction to develop self-regulation in 4th grade lower-intermediate English Language Learners (ELLs) in an English-medium international school. The study took place in the English as an Additional Language (EAL) Department of the school, which is a student…