Advanced-level English-as-a-Second-Language Belgian university business administration students were subjects in a study of viewing comprehension by means of the prior activation of text-relevant schemata. Findings support the idea that prior activation can enhance the comprehension and retention of the message content of authentic video materials…

A study exploring the differences between first- and second-language word recognition strategies revealed that second-language listeners used more higher level information than native language listeners, when access to higher level information was not hindered by a competence-ceiling effect, indicating that word processing strategy is a function…

Study examined transfer of learners' first language (L1) orthographic processing strategies to second language processing. Two groups learning Japanese, differing by L1 writing system (phonographic vs. morphographic), were tested on ability to represent novel kanji characters in short-term memory. Results indicate learners with a morphographic L1…

Reports a study of the relationship between nonverbal forms of communication, principally gestures, and second language (L2) private speech through recall and picture narration task. Results show nonverbal elements illuminate the private speech they accompany, and gestures alone act in a self-regulatory capacity after pauses, implying a connection…

Discusses aspects of context from a relevance-theoretic perspective and considers how this may lead to a better understanding of how language learners recover verbal input. Proposes that the way context is defined affects (1) the relationship between knowledge of language and context and (2) the way speakers access assumptions in everyday…

Presents the sources and solutions of listening-comprehension anxiety as reported by foreign-language students and discusses the pedagogical implications that relate to the results. (Author/VWL)

Four eye-tracking experiments examined lexical competition in non-native spoken-word recognition. Dutch listeners hearing English fixated longer on distractor pictures with names containing vowels that Dutch listeners are likely to confuse with vowels in a target picture name ("pencil," given target "panda") than on less confusable distractors…

In the present study we investigate sentence production in the German interlanguage of Turkish students who have learned German as a first and English as a second foreign language. The students know both languages at an (advanced) intermediate level. Nevertheless, we observed some properties of the German interlanguage that seem to indicate an…

To contribute to a better understanding of second language (L2) sentence processing, the present study examines how L2 learners parse temporarily ambiguous sentences containing relative clauses. Results are reported from both off-line and on-line experiments with three groups of advanced learners of Greek whose native languages (L1s) were Spanish,…

We used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to investigate the contributions of explicit and implicit processes during second language (L2) sentence comprehension. We used a L2 grammaticality judgment task (GJT) to test 20 native English speakers enrolled in the first four semesters of Spanish while recording both accuracy and ERP data. Because…

The aim of the present study was to examine whether Chinese dyslexic children had difficulties learning English as a second language given the distinctive characteristics of the two scripts. Twenty-five Chinese primary school children with developmental dyslexia and 25 normally achieving children were tested on a number of English vocabulary,…

This paper presents the results of a parallel classroom experiment investigating the effects of processing instruction, traditional instruction and meaning-based output instruction on the acquisition of the English past simple tense. The subjects involved in the present studies were Chinese and Greek school-age learners of English residing in…

This article presents the results of a meta-analysis of 30 hemodynamic experiments comparing first language (L1) and second language (L2) processing in a range of tasks. The results suggest that reliably stronger activation during L2 processing is found (a) only for task-specific subgroups of L2 speakers and (b) within some, but not all regions…

This paper reports an experiment that addresses whether manipulating foreknowledge of output tasks leads to differences in reading behaviour, text comprehension and noticing of language form. Three tasks are used: reading for memorization, reading for retelling and reading for visualization. Reading for memorization and reading for retelling are…

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…