To date, most classroom-based research into the learning of a third language (L3) in the US has examined patterns of acquisition among various groups of bilinguals. Situated mainly within the context of "Portuguese for Spanish Speakers" (PSS), studies typically group learners based on the sequence / age of onset of their main background…

Among the various challenges that adult and other late language learners face on their journey to achieving nativelike proficiency, chunking has been identified as one of the most difficult tasks to master. Language users are able to derive and utilize chunks during language processing -- both in the first (L1) and the second language (L2) -- yet…

This exploratory study investigates the structural relationship between second language (L2) learning motivation, resilience, motivated behavior, and L2 proficiency among English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students in South Korea. The research questions are as follows: (1) What are the constructs of resilience and L2 learning motivation among L2…

This project examined the acquisition of third person accusative clitics in Spanish by Chinese-speaking learners. Specifically, it focused on the role of cross-linguistic influence and patterns of language exposure and use in the acquisition of the syntactic and semantic properties constraining the production and intuition of overt and null…

The skill, awareness, and perhaps the competence, of language learners to engage in specific interactional behaviors are currently encapsulated in the term Interactional Competence (IC). While IC-oriented teaching materials propose learning targets beyond vocabulary and sentence level grammar, their action-oriented view of what language is and how…

The ability to speak in a second language (L2) requires a certain level of linguistic proficiency, but the ability to "live" in a second language requires a certain level of "sociolinguistic" proficiency. L2 sociolinguistic variables present acquisitional challenges for language learners, since informal discourse features are…

Anxiety is an affective factor that plays an important role in affecting the mastery and achievement of language learning. This study aims to examine the level of oral language anxiety and its relationship with learning outcomes among religious secondary school students in Malaysia. The questionnaire was distributed to 500 form four students from…

This study explores Chinese English-major students' intertextual competence and factors shaping their ability to paraphrase in academic writing. Multiple instruments were employed to collect data from 212 English-major students at different academic levels from nine universities in mainland China. The data were analyzed to determine how a range of…

The C-test is a type of gap-filling test designed to efficiently measure second language proficiency. The typical C-test consists of several short paragraphs with the second half of every second word deleted. The words with deleted parts are considered as items nested within the corresponding paragraph. Given this testlet structure, it is commonly…

This research aimed at investigating the anxiety levels affecting the English speaking ability of university students at a public university in the northeast region of Thailand as well as exploring the factors influencing such anxiety levels. The researchers employed a purposive sampling technique for the data collection by distributing 102…

This study tests the Bottleneck Hypothesis (BH) that functional morphology presents the greatest difficulty in second language acquisition by examining Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' knowledge of both functional morphological properties and core syntactic properties across three language proficiency levels. Specifically,…

Online education has significantly gained popularity due to new technology and more importantly, the growing impact of the digitalization of the economy. Despite its prominent advantages such as accessibility, affordability and flexibility, the effectiveness of online education is still a constant debate and needs extensive investigations in…

This study examined whether the linguistic distance between the first (L1) and second (L2) language is a significant determinant of L2 writing skills of 292 adult immigrants from 39 different source countries, who were beginner learners of Spanish L2. Gender, age, length of residence in Spain, education level as a proxy for literacy skills in L1,…

Although studies on peer feedback have identified several advantages for second language writing classes, the benefits of peer feedback to low-proficiency students have not been thoroughly investigated. This current study aims to determine how low-proficiency second-language students of English can improve their writing by giving and receiving…

The present study investigated the second language processing of grammatical mood in Spanish. Eye-movement data from a group of advanced proficiency second language users revealed nativelike processing with irregular verb stimuli but not with regular verb stimuli. A comparison group of native speakers showed the expected effect with both types of…