Enabling learners to successfully use their second language (L2) in meaningful ways is a critical goal of instruction. Ultimately, most learners want to meet the L2 demands of the contexts in which they will use the language. To accomplish this, learners must develop linguistic knowledge and apply it in a manner that is contextually appropriate…

Bilingualism is a multi-faceted experience and bilinguals differ in how they use their languages in daily life. Therefore, assessments of bilingualism that consider the role of (social) context are needed when describing bilinguals. In this study, we evaluated how (reliably) the Language and Social Background Questionnaire (LSBQ; Anderson et al.…

Though a number of language socialization processes are theorized to promote children's heritage language proficiency (HLP), little research has considered these processes in a single study and examined their prospective relations to multiple domains of HLP in school-age children. In a two-wave longitudinal study of Chinese American children of…

For students learning English as a foreign language (EFL), using English outside the classroom is as important as participating in the classroom activities. By developing the Extramural English Use Scale, this study aims to explore the frequency of high school students' Extramural English (EE) in relation to the listening, speaking, reading and…

This study investigated the role of parental support and selected family variables in the first (L1) and second language (L2) vocabulary development of Japanese heritage language (JHL) high school students in the United States. Eighty-two JHL students ages 15-18 from eight hoshuukoo (i.e., supplementary academic schools for Japanese-speaking…

One of the fundamental problems in language testing is the lack of adequate generalizability between what a test is measuring and what fulfills the learners' real world language use needs. It is important to recognize that no matter how precise a test measures a construct, if the way that a construct is defined and the way that test tasks are…

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the impact of learners' L1s and proficiency levels on their written production. This study also examined the influence of speech upon their writing. The following research questions were explored: (a) How do L1 and proficiency levels of learners affect their degrees of register awareness? (b)…

The theme of this volume, complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) as dimensions of second language production, proficiency and development, represents a thriving area of research that addresses two general questions that are at the heart of many studies in second language acquisition and applied linguistics: What makes a second language (L2)…