The congruency effect--that is, faster and more accurate processing of congruent multiword units, has been demonstrated in multiple studies. It is still unclear, however, what its underlying mechanism is, and how congruency may interact with other factors. Using an acceptability judgement task, this study examined the congruency effect in…

This study was conducted with Zhuang and Miao students and Mandarin teachers in grades four to six in four township elementary schools in Dehou Township, Wenshan City, Yunnan Province. The purposes of this study were:1) to study the influences of the native language that affect Zhuang and Miao students when they learn Mandarin,2) to study…

Aural vocabulary knowledge (AVK) of high-frequency words is critical for second language listening comprehension. However, learners of English as a foreign language (EFL), despite considerable periods of language study, often do not have the AVK needed for basic communicative competence. A mixed methods approach is applied to determine whether…

Learning to use prepositions in English as a second language (L2) has been widely acknowledged to pose significant difficulties to learners, especially within metaphorical contexts. Difficulties relate to the complex distributional patterns of prepositions in discourse, namely, the variety of collocations requiring their use, as well as…

This qualitative study uses a semi-structured interview to investigate why Saudi learners stop learning a third language and whether these reasons are permanent or temporary. The participants were six female master's degree students who had experience learning a third language outside of formal education or informal settings. This study identifies…

The current study endeavours to examine the learning and comprehension patterns of English aspect categories by Yemeni EFL students in the different levels of undergraduate program at the English department, faculty of arts at Sana'a University. The data of the study were collected from a total of 120 students covering the four levels of…

The learning process of English as a Foreign Language is a tricky challenge to face when it comes to deal with Spanish native speakers. Most of the time, people compare the structures and uses of both languages (the native and the target one), which causes an interference in the learning process and may result on failure or poorly achieved…

Noise, although ubiquitous, is seldom considered as a factor that may impede learning. In South Africa, most learners are multilingual and learn in English, which is their second language. Most noise studies have been conducted in the Global North, where the school context differs from the Global South. In this article, using questions selected…

The purpose of this research was to identify the common errors made in English writing by Malaysian Chinese primary year 6 ESL students and to determine the extent of the influence of the first language, Mandarin in ESL writing. The Mandarin language uses a logographic writing system while the English language is written in alphabetic scripts. The…

English is now the most frequently used language worldwide. In academia, English has become "a hyper central language" millions of students are learning for various reasons. As such, pedagogists, academicians, and language teachers seek new tools and teaching methods to help English language learners reach high proficiency levels. The…

This study investigates the effect of grammar-focused hands-on in-class data-driven learning (DDL) with a heavily contextualized corpus on the frequency of written errors attributable to common interlingual interference issues in low-intermediate Turkish learners (n = 30) of English. Items representing the most common Turkish-to-English…

This paper describes a project developed within an ongoing study at the University of Athens. In our previous studies we analyzed the errors of Greek learners of Italian language, using Learner Corpora evidence and we retrieved useful information about their interlanguage and its interaction to the language learning process. In this study we…

Arab students who learn English as a foreign language, especially Saudi students, face different challenges during the process of learning of the four English language skills, especially writing and its component (spelling). This paper aims to investigate the preceded causes of students' spelling errors. The main research question sought to be…

The interaction between input frequency and constructional interference receives little attention in second language (L2) research. Two studies were conducted to test the effect of this interaction. Study 1 examined effects of both Zipfian frequency (ZF) and balanced frequency (BF) on L2 learning of English subject-extracted relative clauses…

When learning English, learners might face a challenging task in mastering pronunciation due to differences in both languages such as sound-to-letter correspondence, size of phoneme inventory, allophonic realization of sounds, place and manner of articulation, among others. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to review both theoretical and…