While making a decision facing a moral conflict, does your answer vary depending on whether you use your first language or later learned second language? A previous study conducted by Costa, Albert, Alice Foucart, Sayuri Hayakawa, Melina Aparici, Jose Apesteguia, Joy Heafner, Boaz Keysar, and Mariano Sigman [2014. "Your Morals Depend on…

Purpose: This study evaluates stances toward and characterizations of bilingual education by US editorial and letter-to-the-editor writers from 2006-2016 with references to perspectives offered in academic outputs. We are principally interested in bilingual education that supports English language proficiency (rather than heritage language…

Research on multilingual acquisition has investigated various combinations of languages to identify the factors determining how learners express motion. Our research examines the semantics of motion expression in learners whose first language (L1) exhibits more variation than their foreign language (L2/L3). The present study compares upward motion…

Lexical inferencing from text is a powerful tool for vocabulary and reading comprehension enhancement. Lexical inferencing relies on the pre-requisite skills of reading and existing vocabulary, and is also linked to non-verbal inferencing abilities and reading comprehension. In this study, we examined whether Fifth-grade Russian-speaking language…

A multi-method approach was used to understand the attitudes of English Language Teachers working in universities in Japan to first language use (L1) in the second language (L2) classroom. Findings indicate that instructors recognise the benefits of the L1 and have awareness of current empirical findings, though, their approach is highly dependent…

One commonly used measure of lexical sophistication is the Advanced Guiraud (AG; [9]), whose formula requires frequency band counts (e.g., COCA; [13]). However, the accuracy of this measure is affected by the particular 2000-word frequency list selected as the basis for its calculations [27]. For example, possible issues arise when frequency lists…

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…

Studies with U.S. secondary second language (L2) learners have revealed individual differences (IDs) in first language (L1) skills and L2 aptitude and shown that these IDs are related to L2 achievement and proficiency. In this study, U.S. students were administered measures of L1 achievement, L1 cognitive processing, and L2 aptitude; followed…

Although CLIL (content and language integrated learning) programmes are now globally expanding, the number of studies that have examined their impact on both multiple language learning (students' L1, L2 and English as a foreign language) and content learning are scarce. This study investigates the effects of a CLIL programme implemented in a rural…

Previous research has shown that people make systematically different decisions when faced with a moral dilemma in a native than in a foreign language [e.g. Costa, A., A. Foucart, S. Hayakawa, M. Aparici, J. Apesteguia, J. Heafner, and B. Keysar. 2014. "Your Morals Depend on Language." PLoS One 9 (4): e94842]. The aim of the current…

This paper explores, at the micro level, the sociolinguistic backgrounds of teacher trainees in a College of Education in Accra and their perceptions toward Ghana's current language-in-education policy. It aims at finding how these micro-level sociolinguistic insights could provide suggestions for language-in-education policies at the macro level.…

The use of writing models with nonnative English speakers has received a certain amount of criticism--especially from teachers whose students copy models in their entirety or follow them too closely. The misuse of models has brought some teachers to the point where they believe that the best kind of pedagogy is to abandon writing models…

It has been noted that Chinese shows both satellite- and verb-framed properties (Beavers, Levin, & Tham, 2010; Slobin, 2004), a fact that offers the opportunity to explore the typological influence of learners' dominant language because they can choose either option to describe the same motion events and be grammatically correct. This study…

The interaction between heritage language (HL) and ethnic identity has gained increasing scholarly attention over the past decades. Numerous quantitative studies have investigated and vindicated this interaction within certain contexts. Nevertheless, quantitative evidence on this interaction across contexts is absent to date. The current…

The present study examined the complex structural relationships between the factors that influence L2 writing in more and less cognitively demanding tasks. To this end, 298 10th graders were recruited from a local high school in Korea. Participants completed tasks measuring L1 and L2 writing skills, L2 reading comprehension, L2 proficiency, L2…