In light of the growing interest in the cognitive approach to task in second language (L2) research, comparatively little has been done to examine such effect over time and the role of individual differences (IDs). The present study was designed to verify some longitudinal evidence for the role of tasks in L2 production and whether IDs, in the…

The purpose of this study was to analyze six English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' trajectories of discriminating near-synonyms in a data-driven learning task. Since the learners find it considerably difficult to learn subtle meaning differences of near-synonyms, corpus-based data-driven learning may provide an opportunity for them to…

A critical incident is an unexpected event that occurs in the classroom. Teachers can uncover a new understanding of the teaching and learning process through reflecting on these critical incidents. This study explored the writing and discussion of critical incidents among six student teachers with their cooperating teachers in a practicum under…

In theoretical cognitive science, there is a tension between highly structured models whose parameters have a direct psychological interpretation and highly complex, general-purpose models whose parameters and representations are difficult to interpret. The former typically provide more insight into cognition but the latter often perform better.…

The 12th iteration of the International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM 2019) is organized under the auspices of the International Educational Data Mining Society in Montreal, Canada. The theme of this year's conference is EDM in Open-Ended Domains. As EDM has matured it has increasingly been applied to open-ended and ill-defined tasks…

Reviews factors influencing reversals of expectations for language-learning outcomes. This article touches on psychological and neurological data regarding individual differences in language-learning mechanisms and focuses on cross-linguistic psycholinguistic analysis that indicates that different target languages offer a wide variety of learning…

Examines evidence offered to support the idea of a sensitive period for second language acquisition. Findings indicate that there is insufficient evidence to accept the claim that mastery of a second language is determined wholly, or even primarily, by maturational factors. (34 references) (Author/CK)

Examines the relationships of individual difference variables to end-of-training proficiency ratings in speaking and reading for a large sample of adults in intensive training in a wide range of languages at the U.S. Department of State. Variables included tested cognitive aptitude, learning strategies, learning styles, personality, motivation and…