Learning vocabulary is a central and time-consuming endeavour for a language learner and it has thus been suggested that the foreign language classroom has to supply explicit support for students' vocabulary development. A major source of explicit word focus is vocabulary exercises in teaching materials and students' learning can be facilitated if…

First (L1) and second (L2) language speakers process information differently. The current study explores whether L1 and L2 English language speakers process the emotional connotations of high and low-frequency words using the emotional Stroop task. With this task, we measure the reaction time required to name the color of words with positive,…

A text recommendation system helps language learners find suitable reading materials. Similar to graded readers, most systems assign difficulty levels or school grades to the documents in their database, and then identify the documents that best match the language proficiency of the learner. This graded approach has two main limitations. First,…

Vocabulary knowledge has been recognized as a crucial component in learning and teaching of both native and non-native learners, text understanding, and educational success (Coxhead, 2018; Saeedi et al., 2023; Schmitt et al., 2021), leading to the development of word lists for different purposes. Hence, this study aimed at developing a newspaper…

High frequency words, which are key to a text, must be mastered to achieve minimum levels of reading proficiency. However, knowledge about the frequency of items in a language is very limited. Given this consideration, WordSift (www.wordsift.org), a word cloud tool based on high frequency and key words can assist English as a Foreign Language…

The binge-watching phenomenon on college campuses in Taiwan inspired this study. The researcher often overhears her students chatting about which Mandarin TV series they have been binge-watching recently. Given this drama fever, which may provide an impetus for sustained reading of on-screen text, the researcher is concerned with English…

Research has indicated that lexical richness is an important indicator of second language (L2) proficiency. However, most research has examined written, cross-sectional English L2 corpora and does not necessarily indicate how spoken lexical use develops over time or whether observed trends are stable across L2s. This study adds to previous…

Learning vocabulary is a central but yet complex aspect of learning a language. Hence, researchers stress the importance of facilitating vocabulary development via a structured approach to target words and recycling. While teaching materials have the potential to provide this structure to all students in a classroom, few studies have investigated…

The study compares three synonymous nouns, "disadvantage," "downside," and "drawback," in terms of their frequency, distribution patterns, and collocations, using data from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). The findings show that the frequency of "disadvantage" is the highest, followed by…

Phrasal verbs (PVs), comprising a lexical verb and an adverbial particle, are a notoriously difficult category of multiword units even for advanced learners of English because of their syntactic peculiarity and semantic complexity. Non-native professional interpreters have also been found to use PVs much less often than their native counterparts…

This study aims to evaluate the extent to which Taylor Swift's song lyrics incorporate vocabulary from the Oxford 3000 and 5000 word lists and to categorize these words based on CEFR levels. The goal is to narrow down the vast selection of songs available to EFL learners, focusing on the most essential vocabulary to enhance their learning…

Inaudible syntactic markers are especially difficult to spell. This paper examines how 455 fourth graders spell silent French plural markers in a dictation with real and pseudowords after one year of formal French instruction (L2). The Generalized Linear Mixed Model analysis shows first that noun plural spelling (real and pseudo) is a strong…

This study investigates the effects of multilingualism and the degree of proficiency in different languages on vocabulary knowledge among Spanish language learners. Participants completed a 160-word meaning recall test designed to measure their knowledge of the 8,000 most frequent Spanish words and a self-assessment questionnaire on their…

This study explores the effectiveness of four-word frame training in enhancing the reading comprehension and contextual word-guessing skills of Thai public health students studying English as a Foreign Language. A mixed-methods approach was employed with 22 fourth-year undergraduate students, combining quantitative pre- and post-test assessments…

As globalisation advances, an influx of loanwords has been seen in many languages in recent years. Japanese and Korean have similar grammatical features and many English-based loanwords. This study aims to clarify the difference in loanwords in Japanese and Korean adaptation, focusing on substituting alternative native lexicons through COVID-19.…