This article presents a theoretical review of and methodological guidelines for the study of two key notions in second language acquisition research, complexity and difficulty. The term "complexity" has gained considerable currency over the past decades and has taken on a wide range of meanings. We argue for a more restricted…

The fluency task, which involves lexical retrieval from a categorical or thematic prompt, has been a crucial paradigm in studies about lexicon in bilingualism and additional languages. Particularly, there has been a very productive cognitive turn towards analytical models based on the exploration of the cognitive processes underlying the mental…

Eye tracking has taken hold in second language acquisition (SLA) and bilingualism as a valuable technique for researching cognitive processes, yet a comprehensive picture of reporting practices is still lacking. Our systematic review addressed this gap. We synthesized 145 empirical eye-tracking studies, coding for 58 reporting features and…

Background: Student engagement has been conceptualised and operationalised in various learning environments. However, there is currently a lack of established scales to measure student engagement in synchronous online learning. One possible reason is the existence of the conceptual and structural ambiguity regarding student engagement. Objective:…

As educational technology advances, the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in enhancing language education becomes increasingly prominent. However, there is a scarcity of empirical research assessing how AI integration influences student engagement and contributes to the language learning performance. This mixed-methods study seeks to fill the…

This study investigates whether syntactic unification occurs during online L2 sentence comprehension using time-frequency analysis. We measured the oscillatory power changes in native English speakers and L1-Cantonese L2-English speakers while they were reading well-formed English sentences, syntactically intact nonsense sentences, and random word…

Our study examined the language learning strategies of successful and less successful Iranian EFL learners. The sample comprised 1608 junior and senior EFL students who completed the "Strategy Inventory for Language Learning" (SILL), and 30 randomly selected participants in semi-structured interviews. The results from descriptive…

Previous research showed that short-term second language training modulates children's brain responses to language processing. However, little is known about whether short-term training from language-immersion apps would have the same effect on young children's neural processing of a newly learnt language. We examined the auditory event-related…

Critical thinking (CT) is widely recognised as a core competency in 21st-century higher education, particularly within English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learning contexts. This study examines the extent to which motivation and engagement contribute to the development of CT skills among Chinese EFL university students. A sample of 626…

This study examined the effectiveness of online English learning among college students by integrating data from multiple learning behavior sources. The research revealed a bidirectional regulatory relationship between device environment and cognitive strategies, clarified the critical threshold for the regulation of metacognitive strategies, and…

This study investigated the relative effects of constructivist and non-constructivist versions of Cognitive Linguistics-based Processing Instruction (CLPI) on enhancing Taiwanese EFL learners' pragmatic competence in making requests. Both approaches integrated cognitive linguistics with the Processing Instruction model but differed in course…

This study provides an overview of the level of students' cognitive load in learning English in vocational schools. A quantitative descriptive study uses a cross-sectional survey conducted to measure the level of cognitive load of students in learning English in vocational schools. The subjects are 69 respondents who are students from one of the…

A wide variety of gamification tools are available for language learning; however, few studies have explored the impact of Flippity-Connecto (hereafter referred to as Connecto) on learners' cognitive and affective processes. Connecto, a game similar to Tic-Tac-Toe, was designed to assist students in learning English as a foreign language (EFL).…

A new kind of reading platform supported by ChatGPT has quickly become a popular research assistant among students due to its instant natural language interaction and question-answering capabilities. This study explored the effects of ChatGPT-based reading platform on student's foreign language paper reading. A total of 64 undergraduate students…

This study investigates the effects of online instructors' use of initiation and maintenance rapport-building strategies (RBS) on Chinese EFL learners' CALL motivation and cognitive load management. Mixed methods research was used to concurrently triangulate different strands of data on the effects of RBS on 86 randomly sampled EFL learners. The…