This study examined how informal Conversations in English (CIE) groups helped migrants gain cultural knowledge about communicating in the United States and how the CIE groups facilitated the process of language socialization. The Ethnography of Communication (EC) and Cultural Discourse Analysis (CuDA) were used to understand the connection between…

This article explores the idea that learning can be best understood as a life project. This entails recognition that socio-experiential (being), cognitive (knowing) and behavioural (doing) dimension are crucial, and that the future is of central importance -- more than the past -- in teaching and learning processes. Based on the concepts of…

The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenological study was to explore adult immigrant learners' perspectives and motivations for participating in an ESL program through the lens of McClusky's Theory of Margin. Nine adult immigrant ESL students were interviewed about their learning experiences. Creswell's (1994) systematic process informed the…

This book traces the motivational dynamics embedded within lifelong foreign language learning trajectories, examining the factors which generate and sustain motivation throughout a learner's life. Embracing a complexity approach, it views motivation as a long-term individual process that evolves along a narrative continuum, developing over the…

Recent second language (L2) reading studies have examined how characteristics of an individual learner and word-specific linguistic properties jointly predict successful L2 word-meaning inference, i.e., a learner's ability to guess the meaning of an unknown word. Semantic transparency is one such word-specific property. Each constituent morpheme…

Adult second language learners arrive at the language learning situation with an already formed first language grammar system in place. The study of cross-language similarity across the first and second languages explores how the similarities and differences in the two languages make learning more or less difficult, particularly for adult…

In many contexts of multilingualism, language learners can initiate communication in the target language (TL), or a contact language (such as English). Patterns of use emerging from these choices affect TL development. They also vary between individuals. Willingness to communicate (WTC) needs to be investigated in ways that capture these…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of computer-assisted language learning on cultural adaptation and language learning in non-traditional classroom settings. Design/methodology/approach: The data of this study came from extended periods of observation, multiple rounds of semi-structured interviews and home visits. Using…

For many people, learning a second language as an adult is a challenging endeavor. Much interest in the study of adult second language learning has concerned the type of input that learners receive in their second language, with findings suggesting that second language learners are often exposed to a register of speech called 'foreigner talk' that…

In many contexts of multilingualism, language learners can initiate communication in the target language (TL), or a contact language (such as English). Patterns of use emerging from these choices vary between individuals and affect TL development. Willingness to communicate (WTC) needs to be investigated in ways that capture these variations. So…

Advanced adult Indigenous language speakers are essential in Indigenous language revitalization (ILR). As first language speakers age and pass away, communities increasingly depend on adults with high proficiency to carry the language forward (Fishman, 1991; Hinton, 2011; W.H. Wilson, 2018). Yet, few studies in ILR focus on adult learners, and…

Three experiments investigated adult learners' acquisition of a novel adjective. In English and other languages, meanings of some gradable adjectives are said to include an absolute standard of comparison (e.g., "full" means completely filled with content). However, actual usage is often imprecise, where a maximum absolute standard of…

The present study investigated the effects of exposure to Chinese orthography on learning phonological forms of new words in learners of Chinese as a second language. A total of 30 adult learners of Chinese studied spoken label and picture associations presented either with phonologically accurate characters, characters with partial phonological…

In this article, I argue that first language (L1), second language (L2) and third language (L3) acquisition are fundamentally the same process, based on learning by parsing. Both child and adult learners are sensitive to fine linguistic distinctions, and language development takes place in small steps. While the bulk of the article focuses on…

While there is a growing body of research on second language acquisition (SLA) in children, adolescents, young and more mature adults, much remains to be explored about how adults in later life learn a new language and how good additional language learning is for them. Our goal in this article is to survey and evaluate what is known about the…