A considerable amount of research has emerged in recent years concerning second language (L2) learner sensitivity to various information types. From this, Clahsen and Felser proposed the Shallow Structure Hypothesis (SSH) to account for increased learner sensitivity to certain kinds of non-structural (e.g., contextual, discoursal, semantic, and…

Listeners selectively tune in to the most relevant cues for contrasting sounds, and this process impacts their perceptual sensitivity to these cues (Nosofsky, 1986; Pisoni, 1991). For bilingual listeners, recent work suggests a shared L1/L2 phonology system with the phonetic properties of each sound established in a language-specific way…

Prior research has extensively explored audiovisual speech perception and literacy skills in various linguistic contexts. Studies have shown that children's ability to integrate auditory and visual speech cues plays a crucial role in language acquisition and development (Erdener & Burnham, 2013; Lalonde & Werner, 2021). Furthermore,…

While written corrective feedback (WCF) is expected to help learners build new knowledge (Bitchener and Storch, 2016), engagement with WCF is not always satisfactory (Ferris, Liu, Sinha, and Senna, 2013). The purpose of this case study is to explore engagement with WCF by undergraduate of Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) at the elementary…

The number of Chinese international students studying at the US secondary schools had been increasing for 15 years and hit the peak in 2016. International education has been constructed and impacted by larger political and economic contexts. Considering the compound of the covid-19 pandemic, strained US-China relationship, and anti-Asian violence,…

Language learning strategy (LLS) has been long considered as one of the most important variables impacting language performance. Learning context, as a major effect on LLS choices, has not been paid much attention compared to other individual variables in LLS research. For the purpose of highlighting contextual influence in LLS research, the…

This dissertation presents three studies that examined issues related to the production and the perception of pitch in a tone language. The first study examined linguistic contexts that may modulate consonant-induced pitch perturbations (CF0) in a tone language. Previous studies have produced mixed findings regarding the role of linguistic…

Recently, there has been considerable L2 research on interfaces between different modules of grammar (internal), such as syntax-semantics, or between grammar and other cognitive systems (external), such as semantics-pragmatics. Sorace's (2011) Interface Hypothesis proposes that L2 learners, even at highly proficient levels, often fail to integrate…

The purpose of this research is to understand the information seeking and information utilization behaviors of Armenian-English adult bilinguals, while paying particular attention to the contextual and experiential as well as to the affective and motivational aspects involved. At a meta-theoretical level, the study is rooted primarily in the…

A teacher's response is a key element in students' motivation and achievement in college writing courses. The area of Written Corrective Feedback (Ferris, 1999; Truscott, 1996) has been extensively studied in second language (L2) writing scholarship, but that research, to date, has not elucidated why individual instructors respond to students'…

In an attempt to better understand the role of relationship between the use of English indefinite article and L1 transfer in L2 countability judgments by speakers of non-classifier languages, the current study investigates how Saudi EFL learners judge noun countability in English. The current study aims to find; (1) if countability judgments…

English teachers must be prepared to attend to the intercultural aspects of language learning. In Indonesia, this challenge is compounded by education policies that also require teachers to sustain Indonesian cultural values. Without explicit preparation or guidance, these two expectations could be quite challenging to novice teachers. The…

In the past few decades, public schools in the United States have witnessed a fast-growing student population of English language learners (ELLs), who come from homes where a language other than English is dominant. The dual task of content and the English language learning has brought ELLs huge academic challenges, such as one-size-fit-all…

Research suggests that listener perceptions of a speaker's oral language use, or a speaker's "comprehensibility," may be influenced by a variety of speaker-, listener-, and context-related factors. Primary speaker factors include aspects of the speaker's proficiency in the target language such as pronunciation and…

The purpose of this study was to expand on our present knowledge of teacher beliefs in general and particularly to investigate the relationship between teacher beliefs and the context in which teachers work. Specifically, the study addressed and expanded the role of context, which has been inadequately theorized in previous studies investigating…