Language anxiety has become a great concern in second and foreign language learning research over the last three decades, and is a topic that triggers significant differences of opinions. As the first theory that emphasises the specific nature of foreign language anxiety, Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope's theory of foreign language anxiety has been…

This paper analyzes the ideologies and practices of local languages as the medium-of-instruction (MOI) policy in a multilingual school in Nepal. Grounded on the notion of language policy as a locally situated social practice, this critical ethnographic study investigates challenges--both ideological and implementational--that local languages MOI…

The article discusses the potential of combining learner corpus research with experimental studies in order to fine-tune the understanding of learner language development. It illustrates the complementarity of the two methodological approaches with data from an ongoing study of the acquisition of the English tense and aspect system by French…

Adolescent English language learners (ELLs) with learning difficulties face many challenges when reading in the content areas. In this article, we review what research tells us about how best to support ELLs' reading comprehension and content learning. We draw from recent research syntheses as well as individual studies. We highlight one…

Our sense of space is part of our experiential universals. However, the incorporation of space into words differs across languages. This paper argues that "space" is lexicalized in English but not in Indonesian. English encodes the sense of location and direction into "adverbial particles," producing language-specific…

This study aims to highlight aspects of difficulty encountered by Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) learners and to explore the factors underlying these aspects. Data were gathered through a Chinese Language Learning Difficulty Survey from 164 CFL learners, mostly in British higher education. The survey data provided useful exploratory findings.…

This study examined the relations between reading-related cognitive skills and word reading development of Chinese children with dyslexia in their Chinese language (L1) and in English (L2). A total of 84 bilingual children--28 with dyslexia, 28 chronological age (CA) controls, and 28 reading-level (RL) controls--participated and were administered…

This research investigates the effectiveness of the Instrumental Enrichment Approach on the enhancement of the reading comprehension skills of learners with English Language Learning Difficulties. It aims at identifying the reading comprehension skills required for preparatory stage English language learners, re-develop and teach sample materials…

Discusses insights highlighted by a reading strategy training study conducted in a second-language setting. The study cautions against uncritical adoption of strategy training as a panacea for learning difficulties and stresses the importance of recognizing factors in the second-language learning context that suggest modification to procedures…

This study investigated the possible existence of causal links between anxiety and language learning difficulties by using the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) (Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986) to examine anxiety and the Foreign Language Screening Instrument for Colleges (FLSI-C) (Ganschow & Sparks, 1991) to explore learning…

This research explores if poor grammaticality judgments of late (age of arrival greater than or equal to 12) second language learners often attributed to being beyond the critical period for language acquisition can be better explained by processing difficulties due to (1) low L2 working memory capacity, (2) poor L2 decoding, and/or (3) inadequate…

A group of seventh- and eighth-grade Italian students with low achievement (LA) in learning English as a foreign language (FL) was selected and compared to a group with high achievement (HA) in FL learning. The two groups were matched for age and nonverbal intelligence. Two experiments were conducted to examine the participants' verbal and…

"Enhanced Proactive Reading" a comprehensive, integrated reading, language arts, and English language development curriculum, is targeted to first-grade English language learners experiencing problems with learning to read through conventional instruction. The curriculum is implemented as small group daily reading instruction, during…

Reports on two studies designed to prove three hypotheses: (1) five-year-olds can successfully learn a second language (L2); (2) early L2 learning has a positive effect on the development of children's cognitive and first language linguistic abilities; and (3) early L2 learning assists socio-economically disadvantaged children in overcoming…