This study set out to investigate the relationship between L2 vocabulary knowledge (VK) and second-language (L2) reading/listening comprehension. More than 100 individual studies were included in this meta-analysis, which generated 276 effect sizes from a sample of almost 21,000 learners. The current meta-analysis had several major findings.…

Feeling like a different person when speaking different languages has been investigated before and attributed to several linguistic as well as psychological factors. Language proficiency, the context of language acquisition, personality traits, emotional intelligence, and the topic of conversation as well as the interlocutor have been found to…

This study examined play interactions of 15 to 48-month-old children (n = 59) and their caregivers in Lazuri, a UNESCO-rated endangered South-Caucasian ancestral language, and Turkish, a dominant language supplanting Lazuri usage in the community. Child-caregiver dyads played with two toy sets (animal farm and tea set) that provided different…

A large dataset of word recognition behavior from nonnative speakers (NNS) of English was collected using an online crowdsourced lexical decision task. Lexical features were used to predict NNS lexical decision latencies and accuracies. Predictors of NNS latencies and accuracy included contextual diversity, age of acquisition, and contextual…

One of the challenges of developing assessments for young language learners is the shortage of evidence-based information about such assessments for languages other than English. In light of this situation, this paper discusses the development of an assessment for young languages learners in the context of Japanese as a second language (JSL). In…

This study examines the proposition that second language learners tend to map second language (L2) lexical forms onto the existing semantic content of their first language (L1) translations rather than creating a separate semantic network for the second language. To test this, the participants (n=9) responded to three semantic judgement tasks. In…

This study examined the optimal learning schedule for second language vocabulary within an authentic classroom setting in Hong Kong. Following a pretest, treatment, delayed posttest design, fifty-two primary school students (Cantonese first language) studied 20 English adjectives over two learning episodes under spaced-short (1-day interval) or…

Despite contrary research findings, many laypeople still claim that starting second language (L2) instruction early yields linguistic advantages. This assertion is again undermined by a 5-year longitudinal study conducted in Switzerland testing the English language skills of 636 secondary-school students who had all learned Standard German and…

Compliments are expressions of positive evaluation that commonly occur in everyday conversational encounters. This paper aims at raising second language cross-cultural pragmatic awareness through investigating the use of complimenting expressions in Palestinian Arabic which are related to certain social variables, namely, gender, age, education…

This review aims to address the major sources of stress experienced by international students, the role of individual differences, the chronology of their stress levels and wellbeing over time, and gaps in the existing literature. Two electronic databases (PubMed and Psych Info) were searched for English peer-reviewed articles using eight search…

The main goal of this paper is to analyze how the age factor behaves as an alleged individual difference (ID) variable in SLA by focusing on the influence that the learning context exerts on the dynamics of age of onset (AO). The results of several long-term classroom studies on age effects will be presented, in which I have empirically analyzed…

This study examines the effects of learning context and age on second language development by comparing the language gains, measured in terms of oral and written fluency, lexical and syntactic complexity, and accuracy, experienced by four groups of learners of English: children in a study abroad setting, children in their at-home school, adults in…

Presents 30 adult Chinese immigrant women's accounts of their experiences with, and perceptions of, learning English as a Second Language in Canada. Results from interviews with two age groups of adult women reveal the complexity of adult second-language acquisition, which involves factors pertaining both to the learners, and to the social context…

Reports on two studies addressing the issue of ultimate attainment of pronunciation by late second-language learners. Findings indicate that it is not impossible to achieve an authentic, nativelike pronunciation of a second language after a specified biological time. The article argues that certain learner characteristics and learning contexts may…