Evidence from usage-based studies of second language (L2) acquisition reveals that a main source of L2 learners' developing grammars is the L2 input to which learners are regularly exposed. What learners develop from their extended engagement in the sequences of actions comprising the input is not an acontextual system of grammatical units but…

Competent L2 writing has been described in research in terms of an increasing incidence, variety, and length of clauses; a countervailing compactness and tightness with reduced number of clauses even as clause length expands; and various interrelationships between syntactic realizations of texts and the genres they represent. These partly…

This article uses multimodal conversation analysis to investigate how the smartphone as a personal cognitive artifact features in second language (L2) use and learning. The data come from a pedagogical intervention that was organized as part of an integration learning course for adult L2 students with emerging literacy. The purpose of the…

This article explores the identities of tutors working in one-to-one instructional arrangements, which entail a tutor and an adult English learner working together to meet the particular language learning needs and goals of the learner. The tutors in this study are matched with their partners through an organization in New Zealand which aims to…

This article examines how adult learners were socialized by one another in the context of content materials in conjunction with the teacher's participation. Based on the premise that second language learning is experiential and emergent and using discourse analysis of students' asynchronous electronic postings and writing assignments together with…

The aspect hypothesis (Andersen & Shirai, 1994) proposes that language learners are initially influenced by the inherent semantic aspect in the acquisition of tense and aspect (TA) morphology. Perfective past emerges earlier with accomplishments and achievements and progressive with activities. Although this hypothesis has been extensively…

This study is part of a larger research program investigating conversational practices that are resources for language learning in classroom settings. Using methods from conversation analysis, this analysis describes how low-level adult learners' interactional competence in English develops through their interactional practices in a language…

Analysis of speech data from three adult elementary Spanish students, focusing on the acquisition of noun-phrase agreement and the copulas "ser" and "estar," revealed that learners could be classified as either form based or meaning based in terms of their strategic orientation to acquisition of the target language. (CB)

Reviews changes in the approach to language learning that have taken place during the past 50 years. A new relationship between cognition and language has led to new ways of researching language learning and indicates the need for new curriculum that meet the needs of the adult second language learner. (76 references) (Author/OD)

Analysis of adult learners' reports on comprehension strategies, comprehension level, confidence, and affective response to two authentic Spanish radio broadcasts found gender differences in comprehension strategy use and perceived confidence level, suggesting the need for instruction about the evaluation of strategy effectiveness and about…

Investigation of the influence of cultural background on how adult learners of English self-regulate second-language communication found that Hispanic subjects more frequently sought language clarification from others, and also more frequently used the progressive aspect form than past tense forms, than did Asian subjects. (17 references) (CB)

Explains how to simulate dinner at a foreign restaurant to aid language learning in adult education classes. (CK)

Data from Think Aloud protocols were used to determine how two groups of adult subjects approached reading. Analysis indicates that vocabulary proficiency has a power impact on psychological processing of second-language reading by novices but also that culturally determined literacy practices may be a factor. (Contains 34 references.) (LB)

This article outlines the final lesson of a foreign language class based on the theme "Going Out," which provides a review of the entire course work and at the same time provides new vocabulary to the students. (CFM)

A study investigated, within a cognitive attentional framework, whether amount (single/multiple) and type (teacher-centered/learner-centered) of exposure to the same morphological information had positive effects on first-semester adult learners' second language development of morphological forms, and whether there is any differential performance…