Pre-writing stage has been considered very significant as it enhances writing performance in that learners can have discussions with the teacher and/or their peers. They can also outline and organize their ideas individually to prepare themselves for writing. This study investigated the effects of using pictures and interactions in the pre-writing…

The present study was an attempt to examine the impact of input flooding (IF) and textual enhancement (TIE) on EFL learners' syntactic development. Four homogenous groups were selected based on the pre-test and placement tests. During the treatment, the first group (i.e., IF) received reading comprehension passages in which the structure was…

The present study investigates the possibilities for adult learners to attain nativelikeness in the domain of lexis. Aspects investigated are general lexical knowledge (C-test), receptive deep knowledge, productive collocation knowledge, and productive lexico-pragmatic knowledge in a group of long-residency Swedish French second language (L2)…

We ask whether an adult learner's knowledge of their native language impedes statistical learning in a new language beyond just word segmentation (as previously shown). In particular, we examine the impact of native-language word-form phonotactics on learners' ability to segment words into their component morphemes and learn phonologically…

This study is devoted to the effect of "textual metafunction" on the levels of coherence and cohesion in the Iranian EFL learners' English writing performance. Sixty Iranian intermediate EFL learners who were adult females participated in this study were randomly divided into two groups; experimental, and control. They were given a…

The purpose of this study was twofold. First, this study was conducted to compare English communicative competency achievement between two different models of instruction. Adult English language learners (AELLs) participated in either the communicative task-based (CTB) or in a more traditional (MT) language instructional approach. The goal of the…

This study contributes to a central debate within contemporary generative second language (L2) theorizing: the extent to which adult learners are (un)able to acquire new functional features that result in a L2 grammar that is mentally structured like the native target (see White, 2003). The adult acquisition of L2 nominal phi-features is explored,…

To help improve research-based knowledge of effective instruction for low-literate ESL (English as a second language) learners, the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance of ED's (U.S. Department of Education's) Institute of Education Sciences contracted with the American Institutes of Research (AIR) to conduct a Study of…

To help improve research-based knowledge of effective instruction for low-literate ESL (English as a second language) learners, the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance of ED's (U.S. Department of Education's) Institute of Education Sciences contracted with the American Institutes of Research (AIR) to conduct a Study of…

Tasks have received increased attention in SLA research for the past decade, as has the role of focus on form. However, few empirical studies have investigated the relationship among tasks, focus-on-form techniques, and second language (L2) learning outcomes. To help address this gap, the present study examined how the task variable +/- contextual…