Machine translation (MT) provides a seemingly accelerated alternative way to communicate in the target language (L2). A convenient service to the public, MT renders a potential disservice to language learners. In this pedagogically focused article, we show concrete and detailed examples of how language instructors can turn MT and other electronic…

We describe here strategies inspired by translation studies and implemented in a bilingual translation class pairing two student groups of native speakers of English (from Barnard College, Columbia University) and of French (from the École Normale Supérieure, Lyon). Student e-tandems use CMC (computer mediated communication) to collaborate on the…

While the research on pretask planning has concentrated on its effects on learners' task performance in terms of fluency, accuracy, and complexity, its possible influence on the overall discourse level, such as discourse management and coherence, has been largely ignored. The present study addresses the inadequacy by uncovering the potential…

This study investigates the implementation of peer feedback in an advanced English-Chinese translation course. Teacher scaffolding was provided to 20 students who completed two translation-feedback-revision cycles. A survey was then administered to the class, followed by a semi-structured interview with six students. The study yielded rather…

Today, L.S. Vygotsky's concept of a 'zone of proximal development' (ZPD) is often used to just mean best practices in early years teaching, like scaffolding. But in his original theory, the zones linked age periods distinguished by age-specific neoformations -- one of which was the formation of concepts at adolescence. So Vygotsky rejected Stern's…

This study investigates the comparability of three parallel translation tasks selected from a College English Test Band-6 (CET-6) and explores the major linguistic features contributing to translation difficulty. Data obtained from the participants' subjective rating, eye-tracking, and performance evaluation were triangulated to measure the…

Research suggests that second language words are learned faster when they are similar in phonological structure or accent to the words of an individual's first language. Many major theories suggest this happens because of differences in frequency of exposure and context between first and second language words. Here, we examine the independent…

Often, second/foreign (L2) language learners receive little opportunity to interact orally in the target language. Interactive, conversation-based spoken dialog systems (SDSs) that use automated speech recognition and natural language processing have the potential to address this need by engaging learners in meaningful, goal-oriented speaking…

Teaching simulations such as scriptwriting tasks offer a novel way to support pre-service teachers in gaining diagnostic competencies and in guiding students to work through difficulties. We first report on the theory-driven development of a scriptwriting task, specifically the theoretically-founded language- and accompanying content-related…

Bilingualism appears to be related to poor language and reading comprehension in the instructional language (L2). However, in the long term, an early age of second language acquisition (AoA) may produce higher levels of second language skills than a later onset of L2 exposure. Most studies on school-aged second language learners (L2 learners)…

To pinpoint difficulties in the second language (L2) processing of temporarily ambiguous sentences, this study investigates first language (L1) effects and effects of verb bias, i.e. frequency information about preferential verb complements, on semantic persistence effects in L2 sentence comprehension. We tested 32 L1 German and 32 L1 Turkish…

This study examines the role of cross-linguistic transfer versus general processing strategy in two groups of heritage speakers (n = 28 per group) with the same heritage language -- Russian -- and typologically different dominant languages: English and Estonian. A group of homeland Russian speakers (n = 36) is tested to provide baseline…

Language switch costs have been explored less in receptive tasks than in productive tasks, and previous studies have produced mixed findings with regard to switch cost symmetry and the relationship of switch costs to executive function. To address these unresolved gaps, one hundred Chinese-English bilingual adults completed a bilingual lexical…

This study is an extension of Nahatame's (2018) research that demonstrated the effects of causal and semantic relations between sentences on second language (L2) text processing. Employing eye tracking, this study aimed to examine whether these effects appear during more natural, uninterrupted reading processes and to identify the time course of…

This research tries to investigate the importance of mobile translation apps when carrying out translation activities in the classroom. Specifically, this is a semester-long study which attempts to see how beneficial it is to allow translation students enrolled in the translation program at the Department of Languages and Translation at Birzeit…