The current study investigates the expression of progressive and habitual aspect in second language Spanish, integrating theoretical insights from usage-based and concept-oriented approaches to second language acquisition, along with quantitative sociolinguistic methods. To address the full breadth of forms involved, the study examines variation…

Acquisition of verbs and their syntactic and semantic properties can act as the core of any sentence across languages. EFL learners encounter learnability problems in the perception of English verbs' argument structures manifested by different verbs. The current study aimed at investigating and diagnosing the problems Iranian EFL learners face…

This article focuses on the role of crosslinguistic patterns with verbs in the mapping of noun phrases/semantic roles to positions in morphosyntax, with a particular focus on second language (L2) development of Spanish "se." The data set derives from high school learners of Spanish in the United States under broadly deductive and…

The second language (L2) acquisition of tense, aspect, and mood/modality (TAM) has been widely explored as it holds the promise of a better understanding of the L2 learners' linguistic competences, particularly semantically and morpho-syntactically. This study focuses on the acquisition of the subjunctive mood by L1 English learners of L2 French…

The study assesses the extent to which Spanish students of English as a foreign language (EFL) at a B1+ level (CEFR) are able to communicate in English (target language) joy, sadness, fear, and anger emotions. It focuses on perception, by investigating learners' ability to recognise these emotions in a reading task, and production, by examining…

Purpose: Critical thinking pervades formal educational benchmarks in the United States, including the Common Core State Standards. However, little information is available on how it develops. Hence, the primary purpose of this study was to examine the development of critical thinking in adolescents using a written language-sampling task. We also…

This study compares learners' writing in an impromptu, timed writing (ITW) exam and in a process-based, timed writing (PBTW) exam to investigate the differences between these two types of assessments. A secondary objective of this study is to examine the test takers' attitudes towards the two exams. Forty participants taking ESL writing classes…

There is a consensus among language teachers and researchers that language course design is always a work in progress. This is influenced by variables such as the type of language being taught and whether the teaching of this language has been researched. Arabic is one the languages that have created a perennial debate among its teachers about the…

The use of online translation (OT) is increasing as more pupils receive laptops from their schools. This study investigates OT use in two groups of Swedish pupils (ages 17-18) studying Spanish as an L3: one group (A) having free Internet access and the spelling and grammar checker of Microsoft Word, the other group (B) using printed dictionaries…

To increase enrollments in Chinese courses, it should be explained that Chinese is relatively easy to learn. The following should be pointed out: (1) there is no conjugation of verbs, (2) there are no suffixes and derivations, (3) the syntax is simpler, (4) the characters are no more difficult than English spelling. (RM)