Comprehension of sentences with a center-embedded, object-gapped relative clause (ORC) is challenging for children as well as adults. Mismatching lexical and grammatical features of subject noun phrases (NPs) across the main clause and relative clause has been shown to facilitate comprehension. Adani et al. concluded that children's comprehension…

This study investigates the grammatical skills of typically developing Oromo-speaking preschool-age children and lays the foundation for a language assessment tool for Oromo, a Cushitic language spoken in Ethiopia. The current study used a standard picture-based elicitation task that evaluated children's accuracy in producing grammatical…

This study investigated three key issues in heritage language (HL) research. Previous research shows HL speakers have an advantage on oral production tasks compared to L2 speakers who instead perform better on written tasks. Furthermore, both L2 and HL speakers are claimed to have a "yes-bias" towards retaining ungrammaticality in GJTs.…

Dative alternation between prepositional and double object datives has been a popular topic in second language (L2) acquisition, but only few studies deal with discourse constraints such as the "given-before-new" principle, or given-new (GN) ordering, which describes the tendency to place given information before new information. The…

As one type of the most extensively used sentences, English questions are must-learn grammatical structures for learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). However, it is commonly seen that English learners across proficiency levels produce ungrammatical English questions. To determine the source of learners' erroneous production, we…

In many parts of the world, learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) or English as a Second Language (ESL) often face language difficulties and challenges in their performance in learning. These challenges and errors have multiple forms and causes, covering various language and skills aspects. This study focuses on the types of grammatical…

Generalization is the ability to apply regularities to novel instances, for example, correctly guessing that the plural for the novel English word 'wug' should be 'wugs'. Early language learners make overgeneralization errors like 'mouses', applying regularities beyond their attested uses. Theories concerned with the question of how learners learn…

The present study investigates whether or not Thai students' English writing skills can be improved by using an online grammar checker. First, typical syntactic errors made by undergraduate students majoring in English and English for Careers were examined. Secondly, possible reasons for syntactic errors in English writing in the light of Lado's…

To investigate L2 adolescent learners' use of machine translation (MT), an MT error correction (EC) test was developed, based on the analysis of MT errors arising from translating the learners' L1 of middle school EFL textbooks. Learners were also asked to report on their use of MT EC strategies on the EC task. Results indicated that…

This research aims to address the syntactic problems that Saudi students confront when translating. The significance of the study is to detect syntactic issues among Saudi Arabian undergraduate students. The question is addressed in the study: what are the syntactic problems that Saudi students confront when translating? The researcher used a…

This study investigates the acquisition of null subjects by Mandarin Chinese native speakers ('Chinese NSs' hereafter), with different levels of L2 English proficiency, at initial stages of L3 Italian acquisition. The aim is to find out if, when acquiring Italian null subjects, Chinese NSs resort to their L1, which, like the L3, allows null…

This research investigated avoidance behaviour, one of the strategies L2 learners may resort to because of L1-L2 differences, or the non-existence of L2 structures for L1 learners, i.e. the Avoidance Behaviour Hypothesis (Schachter 1974). However, based on the Factors of L2 Non-Avoidance Hypothesis (FNAH) (Thiamtawan & Pongpairoj, 2013, 2019),…

While writing has evolved away from the conventional method of using pens and paper in favor of digital tools (Li et al., 2019), English teachers continue to face difficulties in teaching writing. This study shows how mind-mapping and the program, Writeabout, can be merged for online writing classes in English for Specific Purposes (ESP)…

This study is descriptive quantitative research by using a test to collect the data needed. Iraqi English as a foreign language (EFL) students face difficulties in differentiating between using prepositions correctly. This study has been performed in the Department of English at College of Education for Women, University of Baghdad, to diagnosis…

In second language teaching and learning, making errors is inevitable as language learning requires a lot of cognitive effort and concentration on the part of learners. Understanding the types and frequencies of student errors is, therefore, an important issue for ESL and EFL teachers to determine how students can be helped to improve their skills…