The past 20 years have witnessed enormous growth in a diverse array of studies which explore the linguistic impact of study abroad (SA) experiences. During this period a multitude of research projects have investigated SLA/L2 learning in SA, in a number of different languages (Russian, Japanese, French, Spanish, English), utilizing diverse…

The integration policies in some Northern European countries display relatively poor outcomes of passed exam rates for immigrant language training, and several groups of immigrants have very low employment rates. These measures, in many countries, are strong incentives for host-country language acquisition in addition to the obligation to document…

This article reviews Assessing Comprehension and Communication in English State-to-State for English Language Learners ("ACCESS for ELLs"[R]), which is a large-scale, high-stakes, standards-based, and criterion-referenced English language proficiency test administered in the USA annually to more than 840,000 English Language Learners (ELLs), in…

This study describes the realization of onset and coda clusters in a 4-year old child acquiring American English, and with a higher than usual level of unintelligible speech. It reviews previous studies that have tested cluster realization against markedness and, in particular, the sonority hypothesis. This latter predicts steep rises in sonority…

Purpose: Obtaining information on both languages of English language learners for assessment can be a challenge in a multilingual context. It is often difficult or impossible to observe a child's first language directly due to the absence of resources available in every language spoken. The objectives of this study were (1) to develop a parent…

The researchers investigated attributions for success, attitudes, and aptitudes for native language learning and foreign language learning success for 648 students enrolled in 100-level university foreign language courses (Spanish, French, and German). We examined relationships via correlational analyses and used structural equation modeling to…

Gardner's (1983) Multiple Intelligences Theory (MIT) has been found to have profound implications in teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) in that it provides a way for teachers to recognize learners' individual cognitive and affective differences by providing favorable motivational conditions for learning. However, little investigation…

The aim of this study was to investigate vocabulary knowledge and growth across two different language-learning programmes in Hong Kong. The two programmes compared were English immersion programmes (IM) and regular English second-language programmes (RL2). While previous research has identified an overall advantage to IM with respect to language…

Bilingual children sometimes produce constructions influenced by their other language (cross-linguistic transfer). Transfer can often be predicted by the existence of overlapping and ambiguous constructions in both languages. In this paper, we investigate whether cross-linguistic transfer occurs when overlapping constructions exist, but there are…

This study compared the amount of the second language (L2) use and linguistic gains made by students in three short-term language immersion programs: (1) traditional study abroad, (2) service-oriented study abroad, and (3) foreign language (FL) housing. These were chosen because they represent three distinct program types, providing students with…

The goal of this study is to describe the acquisition rate for gender acquisition in Spanish and to show whether individual variability and language contact may affect this rate. The participants were intermediate second language Spanish (first language English) learners in the study abroad and at-home contexts over a 4-month period. The…

The current concern about low levels of English proficiency among international students who graduate from degree courses--that students' English language skills are not being developed during their higher education experience--reflects negatively on the quality of Australian higher education and its graduates. More careful selection of students…

This discourse-based study turns its attention to paired test-taker discourse in the First Certificate in English speaking test. Its primary aim is to focus on fundamental conversation management concepts, such as overall structural organisation, turn-taking, sequencing, and topic organisation found in the dyadic test-taker interaction in 30 pairs…

The problems of hypothesis testing and interval estimation of the squared multiple correlation coefficient of a multivariate normal distribution are considered. It is shown that available one-sided tests are uniformly most powerful, and the one-sided confidence intervals are uniformly most accurate. An exact method of calculating sample size to…

Computer adaptive testing (CAT) is theoretically sound and efficient, and is commonly seen in larger testing programs. It is, however, rarely seen in a smaller-scale scenario, such as in classrooms or business daily routines, because of the complexity of most adopted Item Response Theory (IRT) models. While the Sequential Probability Ratio Test…