This study investigates the acquisition and maintenance of periphrastic and se-passives in second language (L2), heritage (HS), and (Spanish-dominant) native Spanish speakers (NS) by addressing: (i) How accessible are Spanish periphrastic passives (which also exist in English) and se-passives (unique to Spanish) for L2ers and HSs in production?…

EL1 learners' receptive morphological words (root, inflected, and derived words) develop on different scales, but whether they develop similarly in EFL learners' language production is still unknown and deserves an examination. The answer may provide a clue to theoretical controversy about whether language learners' morphologically defined words…

This study explores the effects of receptive derivational affix knowledge, derivative frequency, part of speech, and vocabulary breadth on production of derivatives. Twenty-one speakers of English as a first language and 107 learners of English as a second language were asked to produce derivatives for 90 prompt words on a decontextualized…

The present study sets out to measure Turkish EFL learners' receptive affix knowledge and productive derivative vocabulary knowledge. More specifically, the extent to which Turkish EFL learners recognize written form of affixes, know the meaning of affixes and determine the part of speech of the derivatives produced by means of affixes and how…

Generalization is the ability to apply regularities to novel instances, for example, correctly guessing that the plural for the novel English word 'wug' should be 'wugs'. Early language learners make overgeneralization errors like 'mouses', applying regularities beyond their attested uses. Theories concerned with the question of how learners learn…

This study investigated the learnability of multiple word knowledge aspects and the relationship between the word knowledge aspects. A total of 261 Thai high school students were measured on receptive and productive word knowledge aspects: word parts, the form-meaning link, and collocations. The current findings indicated that word parts are…

Immersion students' language abilities are generally characterized by strong receptive skills (listening, reading) and less developed productive skills (speaking, writing) when compared with L1 speakers of the immersion language (e.g., Allen et al. 1990; Cummins 1998; Harley 1992). In this paper we report results from a six-month mixed-methods…

This study explored whether form-focused instruction (FFI) and peer corrective feedback (CF) facilitated vocabulary development during peer interaction (PI). Third-semester learners of German were assigned to a PI group (peer interaction only), PI FFI group (peer interaction and form-focused instruction), or PI FFI CF group (peer interaction,…

This thesis examines whether native, heritage, and L2 speakers of Spanish engage a morphological layer of representation in the processing of inflected words, and whether they do so with both regularly- and irregularly-inflected words. Also examined is whether this tendency towards compositional (i.e. morphological rule-based) processing is…

We examined sources of morphological variability in second language (L2) learners of Spanish whose native language (L1) is English, with a focus on L1-L2 similarity, morphological markedness, and knowledge type (receptive vs. expressive). Experiment 1 uses event-related potentials to examine noun-adjective number (present in L1) and gender…

This investigation examined two techniques that may help learners focus on second language (L2) constructions when recasts are provided during meaning-based communicative activities: altering the cognitive complexity of tasks and manipulating the input frequency distributions of target constructions. We first independently assessed the validity of…

This study examines the longer term effectiveness of a standard protocol, Tier 2 supplemental vocabulary intervention for kindergarten English learners, designed to develop root word vocabulary knowledge and reinforce beginning word reading skills. Participating students in the original study ("n" = 93 treatment, 92 control) received 20…

Two approaches to grammar instruction are often discussed in the ESL literature: direct explicit grammar instruction (DEGI) (deduction) and indirect explicit grammar instruction (IEGI) (induction). This study aims to explore the effects of indirect explicit grammar instruction on EFL learners' mastery of English tenses. Ninety-four…

Purpose: In this study, the authors sought to determine whether a combination of English-language measures and a parent questionnaire on first-language development could adequately discriminate between English-language learners (ELLs) with and without language impairment (LI) when children had diverse first-language backgrounds. Method:…

This study examines evidence for the hypothesis (e.g., Muñoz, 2006) that an early starting age is not necessarily more beneficial to the successful learning of L2 inflectional morphology in strictly formal instructional settings. The present author investigated the quantitative and qualitative differences in the production and reception of 5…