Content-based instruction (CBI) adopts a second language (L2) as the medium of instruction for some or all academic subjects to facilitate L2 learning. There seem however, no uniform policies concerning which academic subjects should be taught in L2, in case only some subjects are involved. Conventional wisdom tends to favour Humanities subjects…

The population in the USA has become more diverse, but the number of teachers in public schools who are fluent in another language is limited. Furthermore, statistics attest that few teachers have adequate training to work with English language learners (ELLs). Teachers who lack training and have not struggled to learn another language may not…

Although many studies have suggested positive effects for speaking or output practice on L2 grammar development, the question of how speaking affects L2 grammar remains. This study specifically examines how output affects the explicit and implicit knowledge of Spanish indirect object pronouns (IOPs). It also investigates levels of L2 grammar…

An internally-developed tool was developed to assess the intercultural competence of students taking part in short-term study abroad programs. Four scales were built to assess possible change in students' host culture knowledge, cross-cultural awareness, cross-cultural adaptation, and self-assessed foreign language proficiency. Enrollment in a…

This paper proposes a prototypic assessment tool for intercultural communicative competence. Because traditional discourse completion tasks (DCTs) focus on illocutionary competence rather than sociolinguistic competence, a modified version of a DCT was created to target sociolinguistic competence. The modified DCT employs speech acts as prompts…

Previous research has suggested that high levels of Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety (FLCA) have a negative effect on foreign language learning (Horwitz, 2001; Lu & Liu, 2011) while moderate levels of Second Language Tolerance of Ambiguity (SLTA) are believed to boost foreign language learning (Ely, 1995). There is prima facie evidence that…

The last decade has witnessed an increasing research trend on foreign language reading anxiety as a skill related to but distinct from foreign language anxiety. However, sources of foreign language reading anxiety have rarely been investigated. Thus, the current study responds to the study by (Saito, Horwitz, & Garza, 1999) and extends the…

Building on Baddeley's cognitive psychology (2007) and Skehan's Limited Attentional Capacity Model (2009), this article reports a study of the effects of pre-task planning time (strategic planning time) on Malaysian English learners' written narratives elicited by means of a picture composition. 50 first-year undergraduate students studying at…

This study was conducted with 48 adult immigrant students studying Norwegian under basic education program of the Ski Municipality Adult Education Unit between 2009-2011. Using the framework of Genc and Bada (2005), we tried to replicate their study in a new setting--Norway. The study investigated migrant students' perceptions learning Norwegian…

As a critical part of the internationalization movement in college curricula, study abroad initiatives are becoming more and more popular and the need to assess their outcomes more and more evident. While numerous studies have investigated the language gain associated with study abroad, researchers are also beginning to look at potential gains in…

This study explores second/foreign language (L2) learners' attitudes toward task-based language learning (TBLL) and how these attitudes relate to selected learner variables, namely anxiety, integrated motivation, instrumental motivation, and self-efficacy. Ninety-one college students of Korean as a foreign language, who received task-based…

This study presents the results of four experiments in the framework of processing instruction conducted with four language learner groups (Spanish, "n"?=?43; German, "n"?=?46; Russian, "n"?=?44; and French, "n"?=?48; discussed in that order). In each experiment, the processing problem was held constant (the…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of using the Multi-Sensory Approach for teaching students with learning disabilities on the sixth grade students' achievement in mathematics at Jordanian public schools. To achieve the purpose of the study, a pre/post-test was constructed to measure students' achievement in mathematics. The…

The purpose of this article is twofold: to describe a prototype for a computer-assisted task-based language instruction (CATBI) tool designed and developed for Turkish as a Foreign Language, and to report on the effectiveness of the CATBI tool. More specifically, this work discusses an experimental study that examined the role of teaching approach…

This cohort-sequential study explored the components of working memory (WM) that underlie second language (L2) reading growth in 450 children at risk and not at risk for reading disabilities (RD) whose first language is Spanish. English language learners designated as balanced and nonbalanced bilinguals with and without risk for RD in Grades 1, 2,…