Open Educational Resources (OER) aim to provide equal access to education. Yet, as the language level used in OER presents a barrier to many learners, there is a need to make these resources more comprehensible. This study combined eye-tracking methodology and comprehension assessment to explore the effect of text simplification on English second…

Adult second language (L2) learning often exhibits great variability in its rate and outcome. Although research shows that learning trajectories are partly shaped by social and contextual factors (e.g. Larson-Hall, 2008), certain learner factors play an important role in enhancing L2 pronunciation learning by helping L2 learners notice and process…

The chapters in this volume, all written by experts in the field, present an array of new research on second language acquisition (SLA) that touches on several current theoretical debates in the field and present a rich range of new empirical data and a number of innovative findings. The studies address questions relating to ultimate attainment,…

The 11th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM 2018) is held under the auspices of the International Educational Data Mining Society at the Templeton Landing in Buffalo, New York. This year's EDM conference was highly competitive, with 145 long and short paper submissions. Of these, 23 were accepted as full papers and 37…

Reviews the theoretical foundations of current-second language acquisition models. Draws upon this research as well as upon various studies of memory and verbal-input processing to present a theoretical model of adult second language comprehension. Discusses the implications of comprehension theory for second-language teaching. (Author/SED)

A model for adult language learning is developed based on the postulates that language is semiotic, contextual, communicative, and cultural. Research in psycholinguistics has discovered that a cognitive and recognitional knowledge of language underlies and is greater than performative language. The move from the first level, the semantic base, to…

Discusses recent trends in the field of adult language instruction in which the focus is on the individual. Individual learning strategies are discussed, with emphasis on formal practice, functional practice, inferencing, and monitoring. It is noted that adults need help in overcoming the insecurity they feel in foreign language learning. (PJM)

The fact that some people learn a second language more easily than others has prompted numerous studies designed to link one factor or another with successful language learning. This work examines a large number of these studies to assess the importance of various factors involved in language learning. The influencing factors suggested are grouped…

Theories of human cognition and language suggest that there is a gap between the phases of perception and the phases of production of language. Unfortunately, this is often forgotten in language teaching, so that beginners' courses too frequently contain simplified and non-authentic linguistic input to assure that output does not lag too far…