This paper examined whether a younger starting age of formal instruction on a foreign language is beneficial in expanding circle countries. An experimental study was designed to examine to what extent the five varieties of English language teachers are intelligible to Japanese- (JSLs) and Korean-speaking language learners (KSLs), who have…

The role of subtitles in improving listening skills is a controversial issue in the literature of second language (L2) learning. This study attempted to investigate L2 learners' attitudes to the use of subtitles when watching English audio-visual materials. Investigating L2 learners' attitudes to the use of subtitles may have implications for…

Despite the important role assigned to analogical reasoning (AR) in cognition and language, the relationship between this ability and language skills in the emergent literacy period has not been sufficiently studied, especially in Spanish speakers. To explore this link, we examined two modalities of AR (verbal and non-verbal) as predictors of…

In Switzerland, national educational goals were implemented in 2011. They cover various fields, including listening. The goals specify the competencies Swiss students should have at certain points in their school career. The pupils' achievement of these goals is tested regularly. This review of basic competencies takes place on tablet. In order to…

The entrance exams to Japanese universities have long been criticised for creating negative "washback" on English education in high schools in Japan, as teachers have often focused their teaching efforts on teaching grammar to prepare students for these exams rather than helping students to develop competency in spoken English. Many…

Concerns about the need for assessing multidialectal listening skills for global contexts are becoming increasingly prevalent. However, the inclusion of multiple accents on listening assessments may threaten test fairness because it is not practical to include every accent that may be encountered in the language use domain on these tests. Given…

Observing others in conversation is a common format for comprehending language, yet little work has been done to understand dialog comprehension. We tested whether overhearers use addressee backchannels as predictive cues for how to integrate information across speaker turns during comprehension of spontaneously produced collaborative narration.…

We conducted a multisite replication study with aspects of preregistration in order to explore the feasibility of such an approach in second language (L2) research. To this end, we addressed open questions in a line of research that has examined whether having learners attend to form while reading or listening to a L2 passage interferes with…

Few hypotheses in the field of literacy have proven as robust as the Simple View of Reading (SVR). Two studies included in this special issue use large participant samples and sophisticated quantitative analyses to confirm the basic claim of the SVR, that decoding and listening comprehension together predict reading comprehension. One also…

This study investigates the effects of an integrated oral language and listening comprehension intervention for early elementary students with ASD. Students (n = 43) were randomly assigned to intervention or control comparison conditions, with intervention students receiving instruction in small groups of 3 or 4. Groups were led by special…

Purpose: The purpose of this pilot study was to determine whether parallel measures of narrative-based listening comprehension and reading comprehension reflected the same construct and yielded comparable scores from a diverse sample of second- and third-grade students. One hundred ten students participated in this study. Method: Three listening…

How prevalent is dyslexia? A definitive answer to this question has been elusive because of the continuous distribution of reading performance and predictors of dyslexia and because of the heterogeneous nature of samples of poor readers. Samples of poor readers are a mixture of individuals whose reading is consistent with or expected based on…

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of listening strategy instruction on second language (L2) listening comprehension ability, listening anxiety, and listening self-efficacy of Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. To this end, a sample of 52 English major learners of two intact classes from a university…

The primary goal of this project is to assess the students' better communication attainment after applying a series of five interactive strategies to an experiment group of subjects. This class will be compared with a control group of other participants, and in their class, the interactive approaches are not emphasized and practiced openly. The…

Issues of intelligibility may arise amongst English learners when acquiring new words and phrases in North American academic settings, perhaps in part due to limited linguistic data available to the learner for understanding language use patterns. To this end, this paper examines the effects of Data-Driven Learning for Pronunciation (DDLfP) on…