Adult learners of a new language (L2) tend not to achieve target-like knowledge and performance, so the cognitive status of L2s has long been debated. While monolingual native (L1) speakers robustly apply their grammatical knowledge to input as it unfolds, there are competing claims about whether L2 speakers also do so reflexively (Dekydtspotter,…

This study investigated the effect of LWR and the level of passage difficulty on L2 reading comprehension. Five upper intermediate ESL students were exposed to four different treatment combinations of silent reading and LWR with low and high intrinsic load reading passages. Reading comprehension was measured by immediate recall protocol. Under the…

Engaging a complexity theory view of learning, this study examined an atypical timescale for tracking L2 authorial voice development through the interaction of cognitive processes that inform voice construction. A microgenetic analysis of seven adult Japanese learners of English in a three-week writing course designed to help students develop…

Adult second language (L2) learning often exhibits great variability in its rate and outcome. Although research shows that learning trajectories are partly shaped by social and contextual factors (e.g. Larson-Hall, 2008), certain learner factors play an important role in enhancing L2 pronunciation learning by helping L2 learners notice and process…

This study aimed to design a program based on visual thinking (VT) to develop the adult learners' English Language Fluency (ELF). The study started with literature review and previous studies related to VT, visual literacy, writing ability and writing fluency (WF). The researcher designed the research program, and the instruments of measuring the…

Second language (L2) learners have been found to experience difficulty in tasks that require the integration of discourse-pragmatic properties with syntactic and semantic properties (Sorace and Serratrice, 2009; Tsimpli and Sorace, 2006; Valenzuela, 2006). The present article investigates the sources of L2 difficulty in a phenomenon where multiple…

English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' language use in 3-D virtual environments is a vibrant avenue that still deserves more research attention in the field of CALL. To contribute research and pedagogical implications to the current Second Life (SL) literature, this study aims to examine EFL adult learners' use of communication strategies…

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe how Colombian adult English language learners (ELL) select and use language learning strategies (LLS). This study used Oxford's (1990a) taxonomy for LLS as its theoretical framework. Semi-structured interviews and a focus group interview, were conducted, transcribed, and analyzed for 12…

This article reports on a study that examined the choice and use of academic reading strategies of adult learners who were identified as proficient and less proficient readers. The major objective was to explore the potential influence of their adult characteristics on their use of their academic reading strategies. Data were gathered using…

Adult English language learners who lack print literacy or experience with formal education encounter a unique set of challenges in their lives and their efforts to learn English. Educators and policymakers are similarly challenged by how best to help these adults acquire English literacy. This paper reviews a variety of research, including that…

McCormack and Hoerl's state of the art review of the development of temporal concepts from the end of infancy to the end of the fifth year shows that young children's conception of time is quite different from that of adults. Adults and 5-year-old children can construe an event from a range of temporal perspectives and can describe it from a…

This article describes an action research project in which the members of a basic English class for adults over 50 at a Colombian public university undertook the mission of discovering their potentialities as autonomous learners. By means of the reflective use of the language portfolio, the members of this course guided the planning and execution…

The 11th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM 2018) is held under the auspices of the International Educational Data Mining Society at the Templeton Landing in Buffalo, New York. This year's EDM conference was highly competitive, with 145 long and short paper submissions. Of these, 23 were accepted as full papers and 37…

The corpus of errors produced by nonnative adult speakers of English support Miller and Gildea's (1987) KIDRULE strategy. Some dictionary users latched onto a part of the definition without understanding how it relates to the word they looked up. Other errors were the result of misleading dictionary entries. (Contains 11 references.) (Author)

Demonstrates second-language acquisition (L2) is module and parameter sensitive. It is proposed that the acquisition of English by adult Japanese speakers is sensitive to the agreement parameter as well as the principle of structural government. (45 references) (GLR)