Studies analysing the metatalk generated in collaborative writing (CW) tasks have primarily targeted secondary or adult students who wrote either in L1 or L2, and have seldom examined the process of their writing in two languages. Furthermore, these analyses have mostly focused on accuracy discussions and have ignored discussions aimed at making…

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…

We investigated how native and fluent users of English segment continuous speech and to what extent they use sound-related and structure-related cues. As suggested by the notion of multi-competence, L1 users are not seen as ideal models with perfect command of English, and L2 users not as lacking in competence. We wanted to see how language…

Numerous studies of written language development have shown minimal improvement over the course of an instructional period, yet these solely text-based studies offer little explanation for the lack of changes in writers' language because little is reported about the classroom and the participants. The purpose of this study is to use goal theory to…

Although research about the effectiveness of second or foreign language collaborative writing for jointly written products has proliferated in the last few decades, there has been less examination of whether and how pre-task preparation could maximize the language learning opportunities that collaborative writing can afford learners. Informed by…

Recent studies have shown that languaging contributes to second language skill development. Feedback is often used in combination with languaging as a prompt of verbalization during writing revision, and this combination has shown the effect of increasing the quality of writing. The present study tested whether and how indirect feedback helps…

For decades, there has been a debate over the effectiveness of written corrective feedback in second language writing pedagogy. Recently, research on the issue has gradually turned from whether to give corrective feedback in L2 writing to how it can be effective; however, pursuit for effective pedagogical practices are still underway. To address…

This study examines the relationship between German second language (L2) learners' awareness of the German lexical stress assignment system and their ability to accurately assign stress to cognate words with predictable lexical stress. Participants were 31 adult L2 German learners from three groups: native English speakers with a range of German…

The present study investigated the interface between explicit instruction and computer-assisted language learning (CALL) in an effort to reduce plural marking errors among Japanese EFL learners. The instruction involved raising contrastive awareness of cross-linguistic and conceptual features, and was delivered via an online medium. A total of 180…

Recent years have witnessed a strong and increasing interest in the incidental learning of second language grammar. While much of this research has focused on the acquisition of second language word order or noun-determiner systems, relatively fewer studies have examined the learning of second language morphology. Results of studies that have…

This article focuses on qualitative self-report data from a mixed-methods study which investigated Grade 5 and 6 (n = 274), 11-12-year-old, Irish-medium (IM) immersion students' improvement in linguistic accuracy in response to an explicit-inductive approach to form-focused instruction (FFI). A series of typographically enhanced PowerPoint slides…

This study investigates the role of morphological awareness in the incidental learning of Mandarin Chinese characters among Chinese as second language (CSL) learners. Participants of the study were 20 college-level international students, uniformly Thai in language background, enrolled to study CSL at Southwest University, Chongqing, China. The…