This article provides results of analysis of data collected from online Spanish-medium subject courses taught in Spanish by the same teacher to students whose first language is English. The students are at a high-intermediate to advanced level (B2-C1), and are enrolled at an American university in Madrid in courses centring on topics of Spanish…

This article provides results of analysis of data collected from online Spanish-medium subject courses taught in Spanish by the same teacher to students whose first language is English. The students are at a high-intermediate to advanced level (B2-C1), and are enrolled at an American university in Madrid in courses centring on topics of Spanish…

Individual differences researchers have recently begun to investigate the concept of emotions and their role in language learning (MacIntyre, Gregersen, & Mercer, 2016). Our aim is to report on a project exploring English majors' feelings related to their use of foreign languages. Using a qualitative research design, participants were asked to…

This article reports on a pedagogical project aimed at helping second language (L2) learners of English develop the ability to detect and appropriately interpret spoken sarcasm. The study used a pre- and posttest procedure to assess the development of learners' ability to both detect sarcasm and impute appropriate speaker intentions and attitudes…

Most of the research on second language (L2) narratives has focused on whether or how L2 learners carry their L1 narrative styles into L2 narration; few studies have explored whether L2 learners' knowledge of the L2 also in turn affects their L1 narrative performance. The present study attempted to probe the issue of cultural transfer in narrative…

Qualitative research focusing primarily on advanced-proficiency second language (L2) learners suggests that online corpora can function as useful reference tools for language learners, especially when addressing phraseological issues. However, the feasibility and effectiveness of online corpus consultation for learners at a basic level of L2…

This study investigates how figurative language is processed by learners of a second language (L2). With an experiment testing L2 comprehension of figurative expressions in three categories, each combining shared and unshared first language (L1) and L2 lexical representations and conceptual representations in a different way, the study…

The purpose of this study was to determine if first language interference does play a significant role in the use of articles in English by native speakers of Arabic as compared to other ESL learners. An error analysis was conducted on the use of English articles in essays taken from two groups of advanced ESL learners. The essays were composed by…

This study investigated the use of discourse markers (DMs) by college learners of English in China. It compared the use of DMs for four discourse functions by students at different proficiency levels. An audio-video instrument called Video Oral Communication Instrument was conducted to elicit ratable speech samples. Fraser's (1999) taxonomy was…

The purpose of this study is to build upon our understanding of the place and value of writing in the advanced foreign language curriculum. Specifically, the study examines how students in writing-intensive Spanish-major courses are affected by the writing-intensive (WI) requirement at the University of Minnesota. Writing-Across-the-Curriculum…