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Scott Windham; Kristin Lange – Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German, 2024
This study investigated the relative ease or difficulty of grammar commonly taught in intermediate (second-year) German at the university level. Previous studies have investigated the ease or difficulty of specific grammar structures, factors that make it difficult to learn L2 grammar, and teachers' and learners' perceptions of difficult grammar.…
Descriptors: German, Grammar, Second Language Learning, Second Language Instruction
Reza Shahi; Hamdollah Ravand; Golam Reza Rohani – International Journal of Language Testing, 2025
The current paper intends to exploit the Many Facet Rasch Model to investigate and compare the impact of situations (items) and raters on test takers' performance on the Written Discourse Completion Test (WDCT) and Discourse Self-Assessment Tests (DSAT). In this study, the participants were 110 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students at…
Descriptors: Comparative Analysis, English (Second Language), Second Language Learning, Second Language Instruction
Chili Li; Xue Wang; Long Qian – SAGE Open, 2025
The effectiveness of English Language Teaching (ELT) materials significantly influences the learning outcomes of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners, positioning these resources as cardinal in the acquisition process. Despite this widely acknowledged significance, there remains a notable gap in research concerning the evaluation of key…
Descriptors: Syntax, Difficulty Level, Second Language Instruction, English (Second Language)
Mahmoud Abdi Tabari; Xiaofei Lu; Yizhou Wang – Language Awareness, 2025
This study explored the relationship between task complexity, textual emotionality, and linguistic complexity in second language (L2) writing. Fifty-eight L2 English learners performed simple and complex versions of an argumentative writing task manipulated along with resource-directing variables. The essays were first analysed for textual…
Descriptors: Difficulty Level, Second Language Learning, Second Language Instruction, English (Second Language)
Emad A. Alghamdi; Paul Gruba; Ahmed Masrai; Eduardo Velloso – Language Learning & Technology, 2023
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,…
Descriptors: Difficulty Level, Interactive Video, Computer Assisted Instruction, Word Frequency
Sarat Doley; Sujata Kakoti – Taiwan Journal of TESOL, 2024
Scheduling of practice to create a spacing effect has been observed to lead to superior retention of L2 vocabulary and grammar. Two of the various methods of scheduling L2 task practice discussed widely in recent times are interleaving and blocking. In a desirable difficulty framework, both of these methods have been recommended for task…
Descriptors: English (Second Language), Second Language Learning, Second Language Instruction, Grammar
Arai, Yuya – Reading in a Foreign Language, 2022
Although proponents of extensive reading (ER) have recommended easy reading material, book difficulty has been poorly defined and operationalized in previous studies. The present study argues for the use of perceived text difficulty for operationalizing book difficulty based on empirical findings (Holster et al., 2017), reading purposes in ER, and…
Descriptors: Reading Materials, Difficulty Level, English (Second Language), Second Language Learning
Nick Henry – Language Teaching Research, 2025
This study investigates the effects of Processing Instruction (PI) on the acquisition of grammatical gender and gender-marked pronouns in German. PI was compared to Traditional Instruction, i.e. a traditional, vocabulary-oriented approach using color cues (TI) and a Categorization and Memorization task (CM). The results of an immediate posttest…
Descriptors: Teaching Methods, Second Language Learning, Second Language Instruction, German
Pi, Zhongling; Zhang, Yi; Yu, Qi; Yang, Jiumin – Educational Technology Research and Development, 2023
Much effort has been put into the design of video lectures, but little attention has been paid to the social environment in which learning takes place. The present study addressed this gap by assigning Chinese undergraduate and graduate students who had passed the College English Test-4 to learn easy or difficult English vocabulary words in three…
Descriptors: Video Technology, Lecture Method, Social Environment, Undergraduate Students
I. Mañas Navarrete; E. Rosado Villegas; S. Mujcinovic; N. Fullana Rivera – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2025
The Imperfect/Preterite aspectual contrast is one of the most studied topics in Spanish as a second language research. However, there are few works focused on describing the acquisition of modal uses of the Imperfect by L2 speakers. This paper investigates the L1 Russian L2 Spanish speakers' mastery of politeness, evidential and nonfactual modal…
Descriptors: Grammar, Spanish, Second Language Learning, Advanced Students
Võ Th? Di?m My; Nguy?n Van L?i – Educational Process: International Journal, 2025
Background/purpose: This study examined Vietnamese English majors' competence and perception of academic collocations to determine the need for targeted instruction. The research aimed to identify specific challenges these learners face in learning and using academic collocations in their writing. Methods: The study involved 199 Vietnamese English…
Descriptors: Phrase Structure, English for Academic Purposes, Second Language Instruction, Second Language Learning
Li Qian; Sarimah Shamsudin – Asian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education, 2023
The pervasive use of information and computer technology in second or foreign language learning has led researchers to explore the ideal tasks for technological environments to facilitate second language (L2) learning. This study intended to contribute new knowledge to this area by examining the effects of the task complexity manipulated along the…
Descriptors: Second Language Learning, English (Second Language), Second Language Instruction, Educational Technology
Seyede Faezeh Hosseini Alast; Sasan Baleghizadeh – Language Teaching Research, 2024
The aim of this experiment was to investigate how glossing influences second language (L2) reading comprehension in relation to text difficulty and the two local and global meaning representations. Fifty-eight undergraduate students were asked to read three easy, moderate, and difficult texts and, following each passage, answer twenty…
Descriptors: Reading Comprehension, Difficulty Level, Reading Materials, Second Language Learning
Weiyi Li; Jookyoung Jung – Language Awareness, 2024
The present study investigated how Cantonese speakers learning English as a second language (L2) would comprehend English irony and whether their L2 proficiency and use would moderate their irony processing. Thirty Cantonese speakers with differing English proficiency (intermediate vs advanced) were asked to complete an irony comprehension task in…
Descriptors: Metalinguistics, Second Language Learning, Second Language Instruction, Figurative Language
Chenchen Liu; Jierui Hou; Yun-Fang Tu; Youmei Wang; Gwo-Jen Hwang – Interactive Learning Environments, 2023
Automated writing feedback supported by artificial intelligence (AI) techniques has attracted the attention of English as Foreign Language (EFL) researchers. However, there is insufficient evidence and inconsistent conclusions on the actual impacts of AI on students' writing skills. In addition, in the field of EFL writing, there are few studies…
Descriptors: Artificial Intelligence, Reflection, English (Second Language), Writing Instruction