Learners' language background is one of the factors which may influence the amount and functions of own-language use in English instruction. This article reports a study in which a group of almost 400 Polish and Norwegian secondary school learners of English were asked how their own languages are used in the classroom, how they use them when they…

Suprasegmental features are essential in conveying meaning; however, they are one of the neglected topics in teaching Turkish as a foreign/second language. This paper aims to examine read speech by Arabic students learning Turkish as a second language and describe their read speech in terms of stress and pause. Within this framework, 34 Syrian…

This study investigated how standard and substandard varieties of first language (L1) Dutch affect grammatical gender assignments to nouns in second language (L2) German. While German distinguishes between masculine, feminine, and neuter gender, the masculine--feminine distinction has nearly disappeared in Standard Dutch. Many substandard Belgian…

The current study examines the interplay between global and local processes in bilingual language control. We investigated language-switching performance of unbalanced Arabic-Hebrew bilinguals in cued picture naming, using 5 different cuing parameters. The language cue could precede the picture, follow it, or appear simultaneously with it. Naming…

Individual differences in second language acquisition (SLA) encompass differences in working memory capacity, which is believed to be one of the most crucial factors influencing language learning. However, in Poland research on the role of working memory in SLA is scarce due to a lack of proper Polish instruments for measuring this construct. The…

The present study aimed to profile the developmental patterns of discourse in second language (L2) writings among different first language (L1) groups. Applying the list of metadiscourse markers proposed by Ken Hyland to learner language, this study investigates variation of metadiscourse across proficiency levels, as well as across L1…

If known words can be defined psycholinguistically as "form-meaning mappings", the present article investigates whether prompting learners to evaluate whether the form of a new second language (L2) word fits its meaning generates "mapping elaborations" that aid recall. Thirty Dutch-speaking upper-intermediate learners of…

This study investigates the acquisition of the Spanish Imperfect by 60 English learners of Spanish at three different proficiency levels (beginner, intermediate and advanced). Two oral production tasks and one interpretation task show that although the Imperfect is used from early on, the full array of interpretations associated with this form…

The codeswitching pattern is different in rural Tanzania compared to urban agglomerations around the world. Even in very rural areas people in Tanzania are bilingual in Swahili, the national and local lingua franca, and their own first language. The result of this language contact is understudied and has only recently been focused on. This paper…

This study endeavoured to awaken mainstream teachers' awareness of language, specifically related to teaching emergent bilingual children who are learning English as an additional language (EAL) in the Republic of Ireland. Because EAL learners spend the majority of the day in the mainstream classroom, mainstream teachers' language awareness may…

Previous research has shown that learners of English as a second language have difficulties in understanding connected speech spoken by native English speakers. This study examines the role of the perception of reduced forms (e.g., contraction, elision, assimilation) of English words in connected speech comprehension and the phonological skills…

This study draws upon activity theory to better understand the implications of corrective feedback (CF) as an artifact on (1) the coconstruction of knowledge and (2) the action-oriented decisions of 10 mixed pairs comprising a foreign language learner (FLL) and a heritage language learner (HLL) of Spanish. To this end, the dyads were divided into…

Can an early learned second language influence speech production after living many years in an exclusively monolingual environment? To address this issue, we investigated the consequences of discontinued early bilingualism in heritage speakers who moved abroad and switched language dominance from the second to the primary learned language. We used…

Much research has been conducted on factors that impact on second language (L2) speech production in light of the age of L2 acquisition, the length of residence in the L2 environment, motivation, the amount of first language (L1) usage, etc. Very little of this research has taken the perspective of interference between L1 and L2, especially with…

The current study investigated whether monolingual adult speakers of Turkish and bilingual adult speakers of Arabic and Turkish significantly differ regarding their spoken productions in Turkish. Accordingly, two groups of undergraduate students studying Turkish Language and Literature at a state university in Turkey were presented two videos on a…