Studies about the learning value of group presentations in ESL and EFL have become increasingly common, particularly in relation to spoken fluency. However, few studies have explored their impact on students' intelligible pronunciation. In a Vietnamese context, recent changes in teaching and learning strategies set by the government have shifted…

It is widely accepted that the learning of a new language, among other advantages, promotes respect and interest of the students towards other cultures and languages. The question is how learning languages can be promoted in educational settings. The aim of the present study is to explore the principles of communicative language teaching in…

The present experimental study examined whether a different focus during a pre-task planning observation task affects learners' subsequent oral task performance. Forty-eight ninth-grade students learning German as a foreign language were randomly assigned to two different planning conditions: video observations with a focus on language (FonL) and…

Background: Within-class consensus on mastery goal structures describes the extent to which students agree in their perceptions of mastery goal structures. Research on (work) teams suggests that higher levels of consensus within a group indicate a well-functioning social environment and are thus positively related to beneficial socio-emotional…

A growing number of studies has shown that collaborative writing tasks facilitate second language (L2) development by providing learners with opportunities to focus their attention on language and to collaborate in the solution of their language-related problems (e.g., Choi & Iwashita, 2016; Storch, 2013; Swain & Lapkin, 1998; Williams,…

This article exposes surprisingly close historical parallels in the development of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) based on biologically inspired ACT-R theories and dynamically adaptive tutoring systems based on operationally defined cognitive constructs that serve as a foundation for the Structural Leaning theory (SLT). The article begins with…

People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often exhibit superior performance in visual search compared to others. However, most studies demonstrating this advantage have employed simple, uncluttered images with fully visible targets. We compare the performance of high-functioning adults with ASD and matched controls on a naturalistic luggage…

Typical spatial descriptions, such as "The car is in front of the house," describe the position of a located object (LO; e.g., the car) in space relative to a reference object (RO) whose location is known (e.g., the house). The orientation of the RO affects spatial language comprehension via the reference frame selection process.…

Children and adults often encounter counterintuitive claims that defy their perceptions. We examined factors that influence children's acceptance of such claims. Children ages 3-6 years were shown familiar objects (e.g., a rock), were asked to identify the objects, and were then told that each object was something else (e.g., that the rock…

The majority of adolescent risk taking occurs in the presence of peers, and recent research suggests that the presence of peers may alter how the potential rewards and costs of a decision are valuated or perceived. The current study further explores this notion by investigating how peer observation affects adolescent risk taking when the…

Purpose: To investigate sensitivity to prosodic and semantic cues to emotion in individuals with high-functioning autism (HFA). Method: Emotional prosody and semantics were independently manipulated to assess the relative influence of prosody versus semantics on speech processing. A sample of 10-year-old typically developing children (n = 10) and…

In his commentary on "How Task Features Impact Evidence from Assessments Embedded in Simulations and Games" by Almond et al., Mike Timms writes that his own research has involved the use of embedded assessments using simulations in interactive learning environments, and the Evidence Centered Design (ECD) approach has provided a solid…

Do young infants understand that pointing gestures allow the pointer to change the information state of a recipient? We used a third-party experimental scenario to examine whether 9- and 11-month-olds understand that a pointer's pointing gesture can inform a recipient about a target object. When the pointer pointed to a target, infants…

Anecdotal reports as well as behavioral studies have suggested that creative performance benefits from unconscious processes. So far, however, little is known about how creative ideas arise from the brain. In the current study, we aimed to investigate the neural correlates of creativity by means of structural MRI research. Given that unconscious…

While a growing number of studies investigate the role of knowledge and interactional management of knowledge asymmetries in conversation analysis, the epistemic organization of multilingual and second language interactions is still largely unexplored. This article addresses this issue by investigating how knowledge asymmetries and changing…