This study investigated how English language writers in a Chinese university were able to paraphrase following instruction with an online module. Participants were separated into two groups: Group A (Individuals) and Group B (Dyads). They were then trained and assessed in their ability to complete paraphrasing tasks with a pre and posttest.…

English speaking accuracy is one of the most important aspects of Business English. While most studies are conducted to improve English speaking accuracy, they neglect phrasal semantics. This present study involves 30 participants from Phu Em Company. The study employs a mixed-methods design in which the quantitative approach helps quantify the…

In an upcoming coverage-comprehension study, we plan to assess learners' meaning-recall knowledge of words as they occur in the study's reading passage. As several meaning-recall test formats exist, the purpose of this small-scale study (N = 10) was to determine which of three formats was most similar to a criterion interview regarding mean score…

This study examined the extent to which textual enhancement and task manipulation affect the learners' attentional processing and the development of second language (L2) grammatical knowledge. A total of 73 Korean college students read an opinion news article in one of four experimental conditions: (1) textually enhanced, careful reading, (2)…

This study proposed a set of measures for assessing noun phrase (NP) complexity in second language (L2) Chinese writing and compared the predictive power of these measures for L2 Chinese writing quality to that of a set of syntactic complexity measures based on the topic-comment unit (TC-unit). Our data consisted of 101 narratives written by…

The present study examined the effect of language background and topic on productive formulaic competence. Guided by usage-based theory of language learning, this study used a distribution-based approach to the examination of the native-likeness of formulaic usage in English timed argumentative writing. Six indices informed by a large-scale native…

This study was to assess the spoken vocabulary knowledge and its role in incidental vocabulary learning from captioned television. The participants were a total of 87 minority students learning English as a foreign language in Australia. The breadth of their vocabulary knowledge was measured with a vocabulary size test, while the depth of their…

The purpose of the current dissertation is to map the relationships between first language (L1), writing quality, and syntactic complexity, accuracy, lexical complexity, and fluency (CALF) in second language (L2) writing. CALF are characteristics of language production that have been of significant interest in L2 writing research for the past few…

A large number of empirical studies have demonstrated the impact of lexical chunks on foreign language learning. However, reliable and efficient use of the lexical approach remains a problem. In this paper, a revised chunk teaching approach, based on Data-Driven Learning (DDL) activities and language awareness theory, is proposed and tested.…

This study investigates whether re-thinking the separation of lexis and grammar in language testing could lead to more valid inferences about proficiency across modes. As argued by Römer, typical scoring rubrics ignore important information about proficiency encoded at the lexis-grammar interface, in particular how the co-selection of lexical and…

Purpose: Language sampling is a critical component of language assessments. However, there are many ways to elicit language samples that likely impact the results. The purpose of this study was to examine how different discourse types and elicitation tasks affect various language sampling outcomes. Method: A diverse group of K-3 students (N =…

This study evaluates the development of L2 collocational competence in texts written by learners of differing proficiency levels, compared to native speaker collocation patterns from a reference corpus. We address: (1) whether learners develop their collocation competence as their proficiency grows; and (2) How is this development mediated by…

This study uses a complexity-accuracy-lexis-fluency (CALF) framework to explore performance on 2 speaking tasks: a narrative picture-based task and an interactive decision-making task. A preliminary aim is to compare performance on the 2 tasks, using a wide range of CALF measures to explore where scores are similar and where they are different.…

Phrasal verbs (PVs) are very common in English, indicating their usefulness in everyday settings. However, it was reported that language learners generally have great difficulties in understanding and using this linguistic form. This study investigated Malaysian learners' receptive and productive knowledge of PVs, and some possible factors which…

This study investigated the constructs underlying second language (L2) word association (WA) with regard to three dimensions of lexical competence--size, organization, and accessibility--and the lexical performance of speech. One-hundred and thirteen Japanese learners of English completed a computer-delivered oral WA task along with three…