Although corpora have been used in language teaching for some time, few empirical studies explore their impact on learning outcomes. We provide a microgenetic account of learners' responses to corpus-driven instructional units for German modal particles and pronominal "da"-compounds. The units are based on developmental corpus data produced by…

The acquisition of reference involves both morphosyntax and pragmatics. This study investigates whether Dutch, English and French two- to three-year-old children differentiate in their use of determiners between non-specific/specific reference, newness/givenness in discourse and mutual/no mutual knowledge between interlocutors. A brief analysis of…

In recent years, the number of Spanish-speaking Latinos in Britain and London has grown considerably. Estimates from different sources put the population in London as high as 300,000. Unfortunately, this growing ethnolinguistic group is an underresearched minority, and information of any kind is hard to come by. In this article, my aim is to…

Despite the fact that American Sign Language (ASL) courses at the college-level have been increasing in frequency, little is understood about the capabilities of hearing individuals learning a sign language as a second language. This study aims to begin assessing the language skills of advanced L2 learners of ASL by comparing L2 signer productions…

Expressing concern about reports that children can easily access explicit content in online virtual worlds, in March 2009 Congress directed the Federal Trade Commission to conduct a study of such worlds, examining the types of content available and the methods virtual world operators use to restrict minors' access to explicit content. Accordingly,…

The primary objective of this project was to analyze the change in use of academic science vocabulary and conceptual understanding of erosion by the ELLs participating in the Math, Science and Language (MSL) camp conducted in 2008. The researcher examined archival data in the form of student journals collected during the MSL camp of 2008. Current…

This study investigated how immigrants from Latin America who speak indigenous languages perceive and respond to social, racial, linguistic, and cultural factors in the United States. It examined the multicultural and multilingual experiences of six participants, five of whom speak an indigenous language. There were three interviews conducted with…

This study compared performance of both English language learners (ELLs) and non-ELL students in Grades 4 and 8 under accommodated and nonaccommodated testing conditions. The accommodations used in this study included a computerized administration of a math test with a pop-up glossary, a customized English dictionary, extra testing time, and…

Research suggests that acculturation increases the risk of substance use among Hispanic youth. However, this process is not well understood. This study examined associations between acculturation and several substance use indicators among a sample of 714 Hispanic youth attending alternative high schools in southern California. Peer social…

Despite Australia's strong tradition of research on language maintenance and shift, little is known about the ways in which migrant background students continue to use their heritage languages in Australian schools. This paper presents an in-depth case study of students' linguistic practices at a multiethnic Melbourne high school, where over 95%…

Speech act theory-based, second language pragmatics testing (SLPT) raises test-validation issues owing to a lack of correspondence with empirical conversational data. On the assumption that conversation analysis (CA) provides a more accurate account of language use, it is suggested that CA serve as a more empirically valid basis for SLPT…

An analysis of authentic or genuine interactions among Cameroon English speakers reveals that conversational routines in this variety of English differ a good deal from those obtained in other varieties of English, non-native varieties of English inclusive, and more specifically in native varieties of English. This paper looks at "thanking…

The concept of "English only" as the best teaching-learning method in English as a foreign language classrooms has been promoted in Taiwan over the last decade. During that time, the concept has been queried and debated. Teachers and learners have come to realise that for beginners and slow language learners, the use of codeswitching in…

This article reports findings from an ethnographic study of the literacy practices of a group of 11-14 year-old Black males who defined themselves as "the cool kids." The study is framed using theories that view literacy as a social and cultural practice involving multiple sign and symbol systems. Two research questions guided the study: How did…

A crucial question for automatically analyzing learner language is to determine which grammatical information is relevant and useful for learner feedback. Based on knowledge about how learner language varies in its grammatical properties, we propose a framework for reusing analyses found in corpus annotation and illustrate its applicability to…