Collaborative writing (CW) involves two or more students writing a single text together. Previous studies mainly focused on students' cognitive engagement in CW and investigated their attention to various language-related problems during task interaction. However, little CW research to date has considered that engagement in language-related…

This study investigates the use of formulaic sequences (FS) in academic writings of Chinese learners of English as a foreign language across different levels of studies at a public university in China. Frequency-based formulas were retrieved from a corpus of student academic texts written at five time points between Year 1 and Year 3. The…

While language anxiety is known to be a strong predictor of the second language (L2) achievement for decades, there has been a relative lack of empirical attention to establishing which one - anxiety or achievement - influences the other. The present study, based on a cross-lagged panel analysis, examined the causal relationships between language…

Recently, there has been a shift in the perception of tasks. Tasks are no longer viewed as 'one-off' activities, and the importance of studying the role of task repetition has been increasingly addressed (Bygate, 2018). However, the way task repetition effects are mediated by other instructional conditions such as corrective feedback has not been…

We evaluate the impact of gestures during the teaching of vocabulary in a foreign language (FL). Spanish speakers learned words in a FL in four gesture conditions according to the relationship between the meaning of the words and the gestures (congruent gestures, incongruent gestures, gestures without meaning, and no gestures). The participants…

Language learning activities involving time-pressured repetition of similar content have been shown to facilitate improvements in fluency. However, concerns have been voiced about whether these gains might be offset by reduced levels of grammatical accuracy. This descriptive study tracked the oral proficiency of 32 Japanese university students…

To avoid plagiarism, students have to learn the appropriate and effective ways of source text use, such as paraphrasing, summarizing, and citation. However, few studies have investigated how learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) employ copy and paraphrase as source text use strategies in completing writing tasks involving reading…

Engaging students in the second language (L2) classroom is a critical task that requires a clear understanding of the multilayered characteristics of the L2 classroom and the motivational mechanisms through which these characteristics influence student engagement. This study contributes to the L2 engagement literature in this regard by examining…

The present study examined the effect of a pedagogical intervention about humorous verbal irony in Spanish with a mixed group of 40 second language (L2) and heritage speakers of Spanish. Unlike previous studies that have considered only irony comprehension, this project incorporated both comprehension and production of irony into instruction and…

This study investigated whether second language (L2) classroom instruction that incorporates a principled approach into the use of the first language (L1) by students and instructors has an effect on beginning learners' development of L2 speaking and writing proficiency, compared to L2-only instruction, over the course of one semester.…

This study aimed to investigate whether and how willingness to communicate, communication in English anxiety, behavioural inhibition and action predict perceived second language (L2) fluency. The study also looked at whether L2 proficiency moderates the strength of relationships between these affective factors and L2 perceived fluency. One hundred…

Although research shows that second language (L2) learners have major difficulties in developing their productive vocabulary skills, little research has been conducted on how to facilitate productive mastery of learned words. With this in mind, this study investigated the effects of task type and repetition frequency on improving receptive word…

This study aimed to examine the relationships between English as a foreign language (EFL) students' language mindsets (i.e. entity and incremental beliefs about general language intelligence, second language aptitude, and age sensitivity in language learning) and graded performance by considering the mediating roles of their perceived…

Although several researchers have demonstrated that foreign language (FL) learning experience has a limited effect on the short-term development of second language (L2) fluency, recent studies have suggested that learners can gain long-term (over one year) benefits from FL learning experiences. As a part of the present study, 50 Japanese…

Research has shown that learning a known-and-unknown word combination leads to greater learning than learning an unknown word alone (Kasahara, 2010, 2011). These studies found that attaching a known adjective to an unknown noun can help learners remember the unknown noun. Kasahara (2015) found that a known verb can serve as an effective cue to…