This study was part of a larger longitudinal study in which we focused on measuring reading acquisition and observing the impact of SES, curriculum and gender on reading subtest scores. In Part 1 of our study (in review), we reported on findings for students in Grade 1. For Part 2 of our study, we report on our findings for students in Grades 3…

Executive functions (EF) have long been recognized as critical factors in accounting for individual differences in literacy development. However, their role in second language (L2) learning, particularly in non-alphabetic languages such as Chinese, has not been fully explored. This study endeavored to examine the role of EF in word reading among…

This study explores the ways in which young second language learners in an intact fourth-grade content and language integrated (CLIL) science class drew on the affordances of multiple semiotic resources including language, images, sound, movement, etc., to construct disciplinary knowledge in the context of a multimodal project on machines. After…

The present investigation assessed the effects of an extensive viewing treatment (11 captioned episodes of an animated cartoon) on the learning of 36 target words by means of a pretest and an immediate posttest in a group of 120 primary school learners (years 4 and 5; aged 9-11; L1 Spanish-L2 English). More specifically, students' vocabulary gains…

The present study reports on the development of a questionnaire that evaluates children's experiences of their physical classroom environment, activities and interactions. It also explores the psychometric properties of the questionnaire and how acoustical characteristics of the classroom, class size and student characteristics (age, sex and…

This study employs the Cultural Linguistics framework based on the schemas of event, emotion, image, role and proposition (Sharifian, Embodiment via body parts. John Benjamins Publishing, 2011a) to describe how Cultural Conceptualisations are shaped in the available lexicon of EFL learners from sixth grade Primary and tenth grade of Secondary…

By focusing on 179 elementary school children, the present cross-sectional questionnaire study aimed to examine gender and immigrant-native differences in competence and affect self-concepts as well as academic achievement and the relations of those two self-concept components to academic achievement in the domains of mathematics and German.…

The adption of the Common European Framework Reference (CEFR) as a guideline in Malaysian English language education has led the Ministry of Education to replace locally-developed English textbooks with a selection of imported titles. While considering the significance of intercultural skills in the English curriculum, there is a need to look into…

Despite the abundance of studies investigating the impact of academic procrastination on several aspects of learning, less is known about how this construct is perceived by adolescent foreign language learners with different levels of academic procrastination and their reasons to delay tasks and potential suggestions to reduce it. This study was…

The influence of individual difference variables on second language (L2) listening comprehension has been an area of research that has been gaining renewed attention in recent years. The current study investigated the effects of two cognitive variables, aptitude and metacognitive awareness, on 107 native-Korean, English as a foreign language…

While translanguaging has been adequately researched in various educational sectors, there is scant research at the primary-level English-L2 classroom in the Chinese educational context. Within a monolingual English-only immersion policy favoured by the state in China for many decades now, translanguaging has been a debated issue recently. Within…

Home language (HL) effects on academic language literacy have been extensively discussed. However, previous research has mostly focused on Indo--European languages. This study extends the literature by using data (n = 17,600) collected in a diversified language area: Guangxi, China. We examined the effects of four HLs and four socioeconomic…

Reading acquisition involves connections between the spoken language and the writing system. The English-language writing system holds an inconsistent alphabetic system, thus encouraging readers to develop representations between the grapheme and the word. Reading in English as a Foreign language supposes a challenge, especially when the reader's…

Though language education and research have pushed back against traditional, hegemonic ways of teaching, they continue to exclude conversations on spirituality. Moreover, a deficit lens in language education perpetuates a focus on what needs to be improved rather than on our students' assets. In this pedagogical intervention, we begin by weaving…

When encountering difficulties in conventional educational games, learners seldom self-regulate to discover and organize the learning content in the game environment. With the development of the human-computer interaction technology, computer agents are gradually being applied to educational games to provide personalized guidance or support to…