Speech of late bilinguals has frequently been described in terms of cross-linguistic influence (CLI) from the native language (L1) to the second language (L2), but CLI from the L2 to the L1 has received relatively little attention. This article addresses L2 attainment and L1 attrition in voicing systems through measures of voice onset time (VOT)…

The recorded text test (RTT) is commonly used to test dialect intelligibility, often to inform language development decisions. More than 25 papers using the RTT method were published on www.sil.org/silesr from January 2009 to March 2013. As introduced by Casad [1974. "Dialect Intelligibility Testing." Summer Institute of Linguistics…

The study aims to explore the grammatical errors in spoken English of Thai University learners in a communicative business English course. The main objectives of the research study are to identify the types and frequency of grammatical errors. Collected data were analyzed according to the surface structure taxonomy to present a general overview.…

This study investigates the use of oral communication strategy instruction on English as a Second Language (ESL) learners' oral communicative performance and their strategic competence. The treatment involved 12 weeks of training using oral communication strategies such as circumlocution, appeal for help, clarification request, fillers,…

Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) literature suggests that there are different read-aloud goals for DHH prereaders based on the spoken and visual communication modes DHH prereaders use, such as: American Sign Language (ASL), simultaneously signed and spoken English (SimCom), and predominately spoken English only. To date, no studies have surveyed…

Background: The present study examined the validity of a university-based speaking assessment (Test of Oral Proficiency in English, TOPE for short) in mainland China. The speaking assessment was developed to meet the standards (Standard for Oral Proficiency in English, SOPE for short) set for teaching and learning of the oral English by the…

This paper explores teachers' feedback practices in an online language teaching course. We examine several variables that could have an impact on providing effective and meaningful feedback essential to account for students' rate of completion of a one-semester course. Classroom size, amount of teacher-student and student-student interactions, and…

Children born preterm constitute one of the largest populations of children at risk for the development of language impairments. A little over one in ten pregnancies result in a preterm birth and approximately 25% of these children go on to experience subsequent difficulties with language (CDC, 2015; Foster-Cohen, Friesen, Champion, &…

Speech production and perception are inextricably linked systems. Speakers modify their speech in response to listener characteristics, such as age, hearing ability, and language background. Listener-oriented modifications in speech production, commonly referred to as clear speech, have also been found to affect speech perception by enhancing…

Automatic assessment of dialogic properties of classroom discourse would benefit several widespread classroom observation protocols. However, in classrooms with low incidences of dialogic discourse, assessment can be highly biased against detecting dialogic properties. In this paper, we present an approach to addressing this imbalanced class…

The aim of this study is to investigate the pragmatic language behavior of Turkish learners of English in formal complaint situations through the comparison of their speech act performances to those of native speakers. The data was collected from a total of 276 participants, 132 Native Speakers (NSs) and 144 Turkish Learners (TLs) of English.…

This study set out with a threefold purpose: to examine (1) the oral communication strategies (CSs) employed by tertiary-level Turkish EFL learners, (2) the use of CSs based on exposure to English through audio-visual tools, university subject domain and gender differences, (3) the correlation between use of CSs and oral proficiency scores. To…

This study investigated the relationship between vocabulary knowledge (written and aural receptive vocabulary size and self-rating of vocabulary knowledge) and self-perceptions of four language skills (reading, listening, writing, speaking) targeting undergraduate students in English-medium instruction (EMI) courses in Japan. The students'…

This article explores the acquisition of Japanese vowel and consonant quantity contrasts by Cantonese learners. Our goal is to examine whether transfer from first language (L1) is possible when L1 experience is phonemic but restricted to a small set of sounds (short vs. long vowels) and when the experience is non-phonemic, derived only at morpheme…

Teachers represent a large portion of professional voice users in the United States and the development of poor vocal health has related to their work. Elementary music educators are expected to use their voices in both speech and song and are vocally active for much of their workday. This study investigates elementary music teachers'…