In response to a published study of second-language input processing and processing instruction, a relatively new concept in language teaching, misinterpretations of theoretical and conceptual issues are pointed out and methodological concerns about the study are discussed. (MSE)

Outlines a framework for academic language learning that highlights the importance of focusing instructionally on meaning, language, and use. Reviews research that suggests that to develop students' academic language proficiency in bilingual or trilingual contexts, instruction must focus extensively on the processing of comprehensible input.…

First-language attrition and loss of noun-phrase gender agreement were studied for 22 months with two Puerto Rican sisters, beginning at ages 6.6 and 4.6 years. Analysis of taped mother-child conversations suggests that Spanish gender agreement morphology is vulnerable to language loss. Subjects' gender errors were related to their language…

Examines the psychometric properties of the Input Anxiety Scale, the Processing Anxiety Scale, and the Output Anxiety Scale, which measure anxiety at the input, processing, and output stages of the foreign language learning process. (Author/VWL)

Examines whether instruction can facilitate second language acquisition (SLA). Considers studies investigating the effects of instruction on the rate and ultimate level of attainment of SLA as well as on the route of development of acquisition. Explores implications for classroom teaching in the area of syllabus design, teaching materials,…

Think-aloud protocols were gathered to establish that first-year college level participants noticed targeted linguistic forms (Spanish formal imperatives) while reading an enhanced or unenhanced text. Suggests there are no significant benefits of written input enhancement over unenhanced written input for the amount of reported noticing of Spanish…

This study examined whether exposure to second/foreign language (L2) data under different computerized task conditions had a differential impact on learners' ability to recognize and produce the target structure immediately after exposure to the input and over time. Learners' L2 development was assessed through recognition and…

A central question for psycholinguistics concerns the role of grammatical constraints in online sentence processing. Many current theories maintain that the language processing mechanism constructs a parse or parses that are grammatically consistent with the whole of the perceived input each time it processes a word. Several bottom-up, dynamical…

This paper investigates the value of language classroom negotiation of meaning from both cognitive and sociocultural perspectives. According to Long (1985, 1996) comprehensible input gained through interactional adjustments such as negotiating meaning and modifying output is central to second language acquisition, and much research has been…

This article is concerned with the correspondence conditions that hold between certain semantic relations--including part-whole relations, possession, location, and the semantic features [+- animate] or [+- count]--and certain syntactic structures including genitives and relative clauses. The objective is to determine the extent to which these…

The present investigation is a study of the definitional style of nouns and verbs in typically developing school-age children. A total of 30 children in upper-elementary grades provided verbal definitions for 10 common high-frequency nouns (e.g., apple, boat, baby) and 10 common high- frequency verbs (e.g., climb, sing, throw). All definitions…

A lack of reading quantity in EFL (English as a Foreign Language) classrooms has remained one of the most serious problems faced by teachers of English in Japan. Although the extensive reading (ER) approach is regarded as having significant potential in addressing this problem, it is not used in many EFL classrooms. This study investigates the…

This study explored the effect on vocabulary retention of vocalizations involving three cognitive processing depths ("repetition," "manipulation," and "generation"). Eight participants in an English for academic purposes (EAP) context encountered five unknown words when working alone and five different words when working in pairs. In each…

Purpose: The purpose of this longitudinal correlational study was to test whether an environmental variable and 4 child variables predicted growth rate of number of different nonimitative words used (i.e., lexical density). Method: Thirty-five young (age range = 21-54 months) children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) who were initially…

Background: Children who have reached the age of 2 years without having acquired a 50-word vocabulary and/or who use no word combinations are referred to in the literature as "Late Talkers". Research has not yet identified the factors that cause slow development of expressive language; in particular, relatively little research has been carried out…