This study explored the potential effects of communicative tasks developed using a reformulation of a task-based language teaching called Automatization in Communicative Contexts of Essential Speech Sequences (ACCESS) that includes automatization of language elements as one of its goals on learner attention to form in task-based interaction. The…

This study examines the relationship between different types of language learning aptitude (measured via the LLAMA test) and adult second language (L2) learners' attainment in speech production in English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) classrooms. Picture descriptions elicited from 50 Japanese EFL learners from varied proficiency levels were analyzed…

The underperformance of South African learners in literacy and numeracy is a cause of concern, especially at the transition from Grade 3 to Grade 4. At Grade 4 in South Africa, the majority of learners begin learning in English, which to them is an additional language posing transition challenges of a linguistic nature. The sustained poor…

Speech and language ability is not a unitary concept; rather, it is made up of multiple abilities such as grammar, articulation and vocabulary. Young children from socio-economically deprived areas are more likely to experience language difficulties than those living in more affluent areas. However, less is known about individual differences in…

Automated essay scoring (AES) generally computes essay scores as a function of macrofeatures derived from a set of microfeatures extracted from the text using natural language processing (NLP). In the "e-rater"® automated scoring engine, developed at "Educational Testing Service" (ETS) for the automated scoring of essays, each…

Teachers who teach a new language grammar do not usually have the time and the proper situation to introduce humour when starting a new topic in grammar. There are many different opinions about teaching grammar. Many teachers seem to believe in the importance of grammar lessons devoted to a study of language rules and practical exercises. Other…

Two universally accepted approaches to grammar instruction are explicit and implicit teaching of the grammar. Both approaches have their own strengths and limitations. Educators may face a dilemma whether to teach grammar explicitly or implicitly. This paper aims to provide insights into the educators' beliefs towards grammar teaching in Malaysian…

The last four decades have observed a renewed research interest in the area of error analysis. It has been the focus of attention, and subject of debate, among scholars particularly those of second-language acquisition. Scholars in this area of study hold the unanimous view that errors are an integral and unavoidable feature of second-language…

Morphophonological alternations can make target-like production of grammatical morphemes challenging due to changes in form depending on the phonological environment. This article explores the acquisition of morphophonological alternations involving the interacting patterns of vowel deletion and stress shift in Russian-speaking children (aged…

The present study investigates the effects of Task-Based Language Teaching on students' grammar knowledge in the field of teaching grammar. It has been studied with 32 students from 8th grade during a two-and-a-half-month process. Throughout this process, students firstly are applied a pre-test to examine their level and to confirm whether there…

The current study investigated the distinction of L2 (second language) English article choice sensitivity in fifty-three L1-Korean L2-English learners in semantic contexts. In the context of English as a foreign language, the participants were divided into two groups based on grammatical ability as determined by their performance on a cloze test.…

Advanced grammar courses often present standardized grammar rules to students without considering sociolinguistic variation. As a result, many native/heritage students feel that they speak "incorrectly," and many second language learners do not get an accurate picture of the target language's real-world grammar. This article describes…

This article looks at the changes made to examinations in England over recent decades and asks about the politics behind the changes. It considers how increasingly centralised the assessment regime has become, moving from a system where teachers could have a say in how pupils are assessed to a regime dominated by government approved tests. It…

Reading research in K-12 English-speaking contexts reveals that inferential and expository texts cause substantial difficulty for students but less such research exists regarding other languages. It was the purpose of this quantitative cloze-based study to expose any relationship between student difficulty and particular features of the Arabic…

This dissertation explores parallels between Complementizer Phrase (CP) and Determiner Phrase (DP) semantics, syntax, and morphology--including similarities in case-assignment, subject-verb and possessor-possessum agreement, subject and possessor semantics, and overall syntactic structure--in first language acquisition. Applying theoretical…