The input enhancement hypothesis proposed by Sharwood Smith (1991, 1993) has stimulated considerable research over the last 15 years. This article reviews the research on textual enhancement of input (TE), an area where the majority of input enhancement studies have aggregated. Methodological idiosyncrasies are the norm of this body of research.…

Initial studies on the acquisition of two Spanish copulas, "ser" and "estar", emerged from a research agenda exploring whether second language (L2) development was driven by universal mechanisms manifested in stages rather than an accumulation of entities (Rutherford, 1987). Concerning the Spanish copulas, the stages of acquisition through which…

Coupling a review of previous studies on the acquisition of grammatical aspects undertaken from contrasting paradigmatic views of second language acquisition (SLA) with new experimental data from L2 Portuguese, the present study contributes to this specific literature as well as general debates in L2 epistemology. We tested 31 adult English…

This article is concerned with the proper characterization of subject omission at a particular stage in German child language. It focuses on post-verbal null subjects in finite clauses, here termed Rogues. It is argued that the statistically significant presence of Rogues, in conjunction with their distinct developmental profile, speaks against a…

Research over the last decades has shown that language development in its multiple forms is characterized by a succession of stable and unstable states. However, the variation observed is neither expected nor can it be accounted for on the basis of traditional learning concepts conceived of within the Universal Grammar (UG) paradigm. In this…

Background: Existing evidence suggests that young children with specific language impairment have unusual difficulty in detecting omissions of obligatory tense-marking morphemes, but little is known about adolescents' sensitivity to such violations. Aims: The study investigated whether limitations in receptive morphosyntax (as measured by…

The purpose of this study was to test the effect of one approach to writing pedagogy on second-language (L2) writing accuracy. This study used two groups of L2 writers who were learning English as a second language: a control group (n = 19) who were taught with traditional process writing methods and a treatment group (n = 28) who were taught with…

Speech and language therapist and teacher practitioners need particular knowledge to work effectively together to support the needs of individual learners. Using the frame of modes of knowledge (Gibbon, Limoges, Nowotny, Schwartzmann, Scott, and Trow, "The new production of knowledge", London, Sage Publications, 1994), the necessary…

The language shortcuts used in text messages are becoming evident in students' academic writing assignments. This qualitative study sought to determine if the use of the shortcuts has an adverse impact on developmental students' spelling and grammar skills. This research was based on the constructivist theory, which rationalizes that students use…

The present study investigated the efficacy of early English immersion in the Shi Da Fu Elementary School in Xi'an, China. Three hundred and fifty one students were tested in Grades 1-6. There were two main purposes that motivated this longitudinal and cross-sectional study. The first goal was to compare the L1 and L2 language and literacy…

The problem: Many previous studies have pointed out that EFL learners tend to face communication breakdowns with native speakers because their traditional classroom and textbooks are not able to provide learners with sufficient pragmatically appropriate input (Bardovi-Harlig, 1996; Rose, 1994, 1997). On the contrary, they are exposed to rich input…

Drawing on data from eleven preschools in four European countries (Germany, Belgium, Sweden, and the UK), this edited volume explores the progress of preschool children learning English over a period of two years. In the first volume, children's lexical and grammatical comprehension, the quality of L2 input, the effect of immersion on L1…

In this article, a prototype Greek text to Greek Sign Language (GSL) conversion system is presented. The system is integrated into an educational platform that addresses the needs of teaching GSL grammar and was developed within the SYNENNOESE project (Efthimiou "et al." 2004a. Developing an e-learning platform for the Greek sign…

This research investigated Spanish-English bilingual adults' initial learning of a third language (L3), Latin, comparing the learning processes and outcomes of early- and late-onset bilinguals. Thirty-three participants were classified as Early or Late Bilinguals according to their age of arrival to the USA, and they were introduced to Latin by…

This study investigates Italian and French students' grammatical problems while reading in German as an L3 or L4. For the study, we developed a reading test which consists of invented encyclopaedia articles on imaginary animals. These articles enabled us to test various grammatical structures for their receptive difficulty. This paper discusses…