This study used eye-tracking to investigate the real-time processing of phonetic and semantic radicals (components of Chinese characters that give clues to their pronunciation and meaning) by intermediate-level university Chinese foreign language (CFL) learners. Additionally, the study examined how knowledge and awareness of radicals affect…

This study explored the effects of listening-based lexical focus-on-form (lexical FonF) on the acquisition and retention of morphologically complex words. One hundred eighty-two adult English learners with two levels of English proficiency (higher and lower proficiency) from a public university in mainland China were assigned to three different…

This study investigated instruction in vocabulary consolidation strategies over eight months and vocabulary learning among a group of secondary students in Hong Kong. Two vocabulary tests and one vocabulary learning strategies (VLSs) questionnaire survey were administered near the end of the school year. The data were analysed using t-tests and…

Language teachers cannot help their students develop high levels of metalinguistic knowledge and language aptitude if they themselves are found lacking in these abilities. This article reports on a study that utilised a descriptive correlational mixed-methods research design to gather data from 89 multilingual teachers of English, Chinese, French,…

The present study examined the relative effects of discourse-based and sentence-level grammar instruction on the learning of English present perfect in academic writing, using a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design. Participants were 37 multilingual graduate students enrolled in different sections of an ESL-writing course at a U.S.…

This study explored the effects of learning activities which encouraged positive crosslinguistic influence from L2 Spanish to L1 English grammar in young learners. The learners (N = 82) were studying Spanish as their compulsory foreign language at an English state primary school in the UK. As part of ten timetabled Spanish classes over a period of…

The present study investigated the effects of different types of form-focused instruction (FFI) on the acquisition of French grammatical gender attribution. A quasi-experimental study was conducted with 140 participants in six intact French as a second language (L2) classes. The classes received six 80-minute instructional sessions consisting of…

Learning Chinese characters could be challenging for many CSL learners due to the distinction in orthographic features between the Chinese written system and their first languages. While acquisition of orthographic knowledge could be important for learning Chinese characters, how they can gain knowledge about different aspects of Chinese…

Although the development of implicit grammatical knowledge is highly desirable, not all grammatical constructions could be learned implicitly. Therefore, one of the ultimate objectives of most English as Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms is to aid learners in developing their (automatic) explicit grammatical knowledge. Using progressively complex…

This paper starts by reporting on the design and trialling of an informal, low-stakes test designed to assess the knowledge of grammar terms of pre-service primary school teachers following the UK's National Curriculum, the results of which were used to inform the design of a series of optional grammar classes. The test proved surprisingly…

Metalanguage is an important part of teacher talk in L2 classrooms. The present study examined the occurrence and type of metalinguistic terms in teacher feedback and their relationship with the patterns of learner uptake and the effectiveness of teacher feedback. A total of eight teachers and nine classes participated in the study. Four to six…

The present study explored the effect of task repetition with and without explicit instruction on EFL learners' (n = 26) explicit and implicit English regular past tense structure development. One group (REP) repeated the same task (n = 12) while another group (EI + REP) received explicit instruction between performances of the same task (n = 14).…

In a knowledge society characterized by an abundance of information sources that present conflicting perspectives on socio-scientific controversies, it is extremely important for readers to construct effective mental models of such controversies. Nevertheless, readers' mental representations of controversial information are assumed to be biased…

There is growing evidence that dyslexia may involve difficulty with implicit learning, which may hinder learners with dyslexia to acquire spelling skills in a foreign language through implicit instruction. Paradoxically, this is exactly how Dutch students with dyslexia learn English spelling at school. This research aims to determine if…

This study examines low-intermediate to advanced ESL learners' awareness of semantic prosody. Semantic prosody is a word/unit association that expresses an attitudinal meaning (described as favourable, neutral, unfavourable), which emerges from the word's typical lexical environment. Sensitivity to and awareness of such associations is an…