Describes the Thai Learning System, which is designed to help learners acquire the Thai word order system. The system facilitates the lessons on the Web using HyperText Markup Language and Perl programming, which interfaces with natural language processing by means of Prolog. (Author/VWL)

The relationships between phoneme categorisation, phonological processing, and reading performance were examined in Chinese-English speaking children in an English-speaking environment. Second language (L2, i.e., English) phonological processing but not phoneme categorisation was related to L2 reading. First language (L1) oral language skills were…

Hadi-Tabassum believes having a separate life context for each language she learned in childhood enabled her to switch easily among five different tongues. She states that the success of dual immersion bilingual programs is largely dependent on whether they immerse students in each of the involved languages separately and help students have a…

French and Dutch differ regarding the manifestations and lexical functions of the stress pattern of words. The present study examined group differences in stress processing abilities between French-native and Dutch-native listeners, thus extending previous cross-linguistic comparisons involving Spanish-native and French-native adults. The results…

Situated in the context of learning second language (L2) pronunciation, this article discusses from information-processing and pedagogical perspectives the role of repetitive practice with L2 input and of explicit focus on its form-related (phonological) properties. First, we report the results of an auditory word-priming experiment with 60 L2…

This paper reports an experimental investigation of the relative effects of processing instruction, structured input activities and explicit information on the acquisition of gender agreement in Italian adjectives. Subjects were divided into three groups: the first received processing instruction; the second group structured input only; the third…

This study investigated attention control in tasks involving the processing of relational terms (more highly grammaticized linguistic stimuli: spatial prepositions) and non-relational terms (less highly grammaticized lexical stimuli: nouns) in a first (L1) and second language (L2). Participants were adult bilinguals with greater proficiency in…

The degree to which native and non-native readers interpret English sentences incrementally was investigated by examining plausibility effects on reanalysis processes. Experiment 1 required participants to read sentences word by word and to make on-line plausibility judgements. The results showed that natives and non-natives immediately computed…

A bilingual elementary school teacher and mother of a bilingual child, the author questions the presence of specific bilingualism discourses in two Southeastern public schools. Despite research that shows the acquisition and development of two languages actually augment language processing and problem solving skills, the perception of children's…

To enhance the effectiveness of therapy for Spanish-speaking individuals and families requires an understanding of the subtleties of language use and interpretive processing. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe the interpretive process in bilingual psychotherapists as they reflected upon their lived experiences of providing…

This study examines the effectiveness of written error corrections versus reformulations of second language learners' writing as two means of improving learners' grammatical accuracy on a three-stage composition-comparison-revision task. Concurrent verbal protocols were employed during the comparison stage in order to study the learners' reported…

This paper analyses the effects of manipulating the cognitive complexity of L2 oral tasks on language production. It specifically focuses on self-repairs, which are taken as a measure of accuracy since they denote both attention to form and an attempt at being accurate. By means of a repeated measures design, 42 lower-intermediate students were…

A study of second language acquisition focuses on the transition from formulaic to creative speech patterns. Subjects were two native Japanese-speaking children, aged 4 and 8, learning English as a Second Language in New York, observed over a period of 2 years. The nature of formulaic speech is discussed, drawing from research on such speech and…

The work of connectionist researchers is examined in order to understand better the implications for modeling second language learning processes. Connectionism is a biologically-oriented framework for understanding complex behavior, and provides a modeling tool (computer simulation) that behaves and learns without rules being explicitly wired into…

A study investigated the interaction of cognitive, cultural, and linguistic factors in second-language concept formation in adults. Specifically, it examined how seven college students in a lower-division intensive Spanish class developed new gender concepts when learning a second language. Course instruction focused on concept construction at…