This study examines the effect of two vocabulary instruction treatments on word retention by 56 EFL learners. In particular, it focuses on the differential effects of a message-oriented treatment (reading text and answering comprehension questions) and a vocabulary-oriented treatment (reading text and performing two vocabulary tasks) on learners'…

A robust finding from studies investigating the Aspect Hypothesis is that learners at the early stages of acquisition show a strong preference for using the progressive aspect as associated with activity verbs. As they advance in their acquisition of the second or foreign language, learners move from this prototypical association to associations…

According to information-processing accounts of skill acquisition, learner performance becomes more automatic over time and with practice, requiring less attention, time, and cognitive effort (DeKeyser, "Skill acquisition theory," Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2007a). This study set out to provide converging evidence for the development of…

This paper investigates the extent to which productive use of formulaic sequences by intermediate students of two typologically different languages, i.e., English and Spanish, is associated with their oral proficiency in these languages. Previous research (e.g., Boers et al., "Language Teaching Research" 10: 245-261, 2006) has shown that…

The role of the first language (L1) in the learning of a second language (L2) has been widely studied as a source of cross-linguistic influence from the native system (Gass and Selinker, "Language Transfer in Language Learning," John Benjamins, 1992). Yet, this perspective provides no room for an understanding of language as a cognitive tool…

This research explores learner-learner interactions (n = 18) in an authentic EFL classroom. First, we examined the nature of interactional feedback provided during two decision-making tasks. We then investigated whether the learners had made use of the feedback by looking at whether (and if so, how) they had modified their output immediately after…

One of the major findings in previous research on reflexive coreference in a second language is that learners of English violate the locality requirement of the reflexive form "x-self" more readily when it appears in the subordinate infinitival clause than when included in the subordinate tensed clause (a phenomenon called the…

This paper analyses the effects of manipulating the cognitive complexity of L2 oral tasks on language production. It specifically focuses on self-repairs, which are taken as a measure of accuracy since they denote both attention to form and an attempt at being accurate. By means of a repeated measures design, 42 lower-intermediate students were…