Recasts are the most commonly studied type of corrective feedback in interaction research and lately the investigation has extended to what makes recasts beneficial or unbeneficial. Expanding the investigation to the effect of different types of recasts (i.e., declarative or interrogative) on learners' noticing, the present study reports the…

This article investigates the effect of explicit individual corrective feedback (ICF) on L2 pronunciation at the micro-level in order to determine whether ICF needs to complement listening only interventions. To this purpose, the authors carried out a study which investigated the immediate effect of feedback on comprehensibility of controlled…

This article examines floor management in two classroom sessions: a task-oriented computer lesson and a literature lesson. Recordings made in the computer lesson show the organization of floor when a task is given to students. Temporary or "incipient" side floors (Jones and Thornborrow, 2004) emerge beside the main floor. In the…

The present study builds upon research in the CAF (complexity, accuracy, fluency) framework for examining learner performance to compare the lexical and syntactic complexity of learner output in spoken discourse and synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) during completion of narrative tasks. Data were generated from transcripts and…

This paper discusses the use of multidimensional analysis (MA) of learner language to promote the awareness of linguistic concepts such as register and variation. Our research explores the introduction of learner register awareness by using MA of learner language in the field of university Foreign Language Teaching (FLT). In this context, a group…

This paper reports on a study designed to investigate the acquisition of metalinguistic knowledge by L2 learners exposed to large doses of explicit grammar instruction, their facility with metalanguage, and the relationship between metalinguistic and metalingual knowledge. Seventy-six young adult Chinese learners of English as a foreign language…

One problem common to many Oral Communication (OC) classrooms in universities in Japan and other countries is that English major students often lack the impetus to proactively develop their oral language proficiency. In this paper, we present our investigation into whether regular self-, peer-, and teacher-assessment would promote the use of…

Cognitive psychology has gained currency in the study of second language learning with focus on how real-time language use proceeds through two main processing modes: an analytic processing (rule-based) mode and a holistic processing (lexically-based) mode (Skehan, 1998). However, to date there has been little experimental evidence to document the…

Any on-line processing that takes place while an utterance is unfolding is extremely tentative, with early-formed hypotheses having to be revised as the utterance proceeds. The hypotheses in question relate not only to the words that are present but also to where their boundaries fall. This study examines how first and second language listeners…

Although an important role has been ascribed to working-memory capacity in reading comprehension, little consensus exists on its conceptualization, operationalization, and measurement except for its recognition as a limited-capacity processing and storage system. One specific problem in the measurement of working memory comes from researchers' use…

This paper examines the development of strategy use over 6 months in two lower-intermediate learners of L2 French in secondary schools in England. These learners were selected from a larger sample on the basis of their scores on a recall protocol completed after listening to short passages at two time points: one was consistently a high scorer;…

This article reports on an experimental study that investigated the effect of different conditions of listener backchannels on the fluency of L2 speakers. Participants were 14 non-advanced Japanese learners of English who each performed three oral tasks in three different backchannel conditions: (1) verbal/nonverbal (V/NV), (2) nonverbal-only…

This study investigates how L2 learners of German (English L1) process structural and semantic information when reading German sentences. In a timed comprehension task, intermediate and advanced L2 learners of German read sentences that varied according to word order (subject-first versus object-first) and subject animacy (inanimate subject versus…

Drawing on the psycholinguistic rationale and empirical research on output (e.g., [Izumi, S., 2002. "Output, input enhancement, and the noticing hypothesis: An experimental study on ESL relativization." "Studies in Second Language Acquisition" 24, 541-577; Izumi, S., Bigelow, M., 2000. "Does output promote noticing and second language…

This paper presents a brief summary of processability theory as proposed by [Pienemann, M., 1998a. "Language Processing and Second Language Development: Processability Theory." John Benjamins, Amsterdam; Pienemann, M., 1998b. "Developmental dynamics in L1 and L2 acquisition: processability theory and generative entrenchment." "Bilingualism:…