In this paper, we validate Macaro's (2006) model of strategy use among language learners by assessing the amount of neural activity around the prefrontal cortex, the supposed locus of working memory (WM). We also examine whether WM activation during first language (L1) strategy deployment is lower than WM activation during second language (L2)…

The study examined the acquisition of two morphological procedures of noun pluralization in Palestinian Arabic: "Sound Feminine Plural" (SFP) and "Broken Plural" (BP). We tested if noun pluralization was affected by (1) the type of morphological procedure, (2) the degree of familiarity with the singular noun stem, and (3) the…

Research Findings: The objective of this study was to examine the student-teacher relationship as a potential moderator of the link between executive functioning (EF) and children's early school readiness among a clinical sample of preschoolers with externalizing behavior problems (EBP). Participants for the study included 139 preschool children…

Heritage language speakers struggle in European classrooms with insufficient material provided for second language (SL) learning and assessment. Considering the amount of instruments and pertinent studies in English SL, immigrant students are better prepared than their peers in Romance language settings. This study investigates how factors such as…

The European Language Portfolio (ELP) was designed as a tool that "supports reflective learning and fosters the development of learner autonomy" (Little 2009, "The European Language Portfolio: Where pedagogy and assessment meet". Strasbourg: Council of Europe.…

Although teamwork has been identified as an essential skill for Computer Science (CS) graduates, these skills are identified as lacking by industry employers, which suggests a need for more proactive measures to teach and assess teamwork. In one CS course, students worked in teams to create a wiki solution to problem-based questions. Through a…

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether teaching vocabulary via collocations would contribute to retention and use of foreign language, English. A quasi-experimental design was formed to see whether there would be a significant difference between the treatment and control groups. Three instruments developed were conducted to 60…

This article presents the concept of creative potential and its link to talent. Psychological measures to assess creative potential in children and adolescents (EPoC) and adults (Creative Profiler) are then described. Implications for developing creativity are proposed.

Previous research has shown that the degree of structure in a task affects the complexity, accuracy, and fluency of L2 oral production (Foster & Skehan 1999). The acquisition of pragmatic markers may be related to the development of second language fluency, but there is limited research on their use by second language learners on different…

Does solving subtraction problems with negative answers (e.g., 5-14) require different cognitive processes than solving problems with positive answers (e.g., 14-5)? In a dual-task experiment, young adults (N=39) combined subtraction with two working memory tasks, verbal memory and visual-spatial memory. All of the subtraction problems required…

In argumentative discourse, there are two kinds of activity--dispute and deliberation--that depend on the argumentative task goal. In dispute the goal is to defend a conclusion by undermining alternatives, whereas in deliberation the goal is to arrive at a conclusion by contrasting alternatives. In this study, we examine the impact of these tasks…

Many studies have tested external supports for promoting productive collaboration, but relatively few have examined what features characterize naturally productive collaborative tasks. Two lines of research have come to distinct conclusions on the primary task feature associated with productive collaboration: demonstrability versus complexity.…

Prior literature has primarily focused on the negative influences of misleading external sources on memory judgments. This study investigated whether participants can capitalize on generally reliable recommendations in order to improve their net performance; the focus was on potential roles for metacognitive monitoring (i.e., knowledge about one's…

This study investigated cross-linguistic influence in acquisition of a second lexicon, evaluating Samoan-English sequentially bilingual children (initial mean age 4 ; 9) during their first 18 months of school. Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary tasks evaluated acquisition of four word types: cognates, matched nouns, phrasal nouns and holonyms.…

Strategic text processing was investigated for English as a foreign language learners who processed and recalled a text when they read for expression, for image, and for critique. The results indicated that, although the amount of content recall (i.e., products of comprehension) was similar, the relative contributions of second language (L2)…