Research has indicated that first language (L1) English speakers acquire derivational knowledge--the ability to understand and produce derived forms of a word--through increased exposure to the language (e.g., Anglin, 1993). Second language (L2) research has shown that L2 English learners tend to have limited productive derivational knowledge in…

Purpose: Our 1-year longitudinal study tracked the development of cognate awareness among second (L2) and third language (L3) learners of French in French immersion in Grades 1 and 2 to explore the impact of orthographic overlap and cognate status (true vs. false) on children's ability to recognize cognate relationships. We also assessed the…

Directed motivational currents (DMCs) are a unique and intense motivational drive capable of supporting second language learning. Learners throughout the world can experience these unique motivational feelings regardless of their teaching and learning contexts. Therefore, researchers and language teachers have been exploring cases of DMCs since…

Previous studies have indicated inconsistencies in utilizing the mobile application known as "WhatsApp" in academic vocabulary learning. This study attempts to overcome those inconsistencies by addressing three research aims, namely a) to examine any significant difference of employing vocabulary learning between using…

This qualitative case study of a high school world language (WL) classroom with flexible language boundaries (Cummins, 2012; Creese & Blackledge, 2010; Garcia & Li Wei, 2014; Turnbull & Daily-O'Cain, 2009) examines how proficient L1 readers constructed meaning from authentic L2 text as emerging bilinguals. Grounded in sociocognitive…

The purpose of this study is to determine whether a vocabulary size test is a valid and reliable measure of longitudinal growth in vocabulary size (VS), and to investigate the relationship between growth in VS and use of vocabulary learning strategies (VLS). Kasahara's (2006) revised version of Mochizuki's (1998) Vocabulary Size Test (VST) was…

In recent years, there has been increasing debate and research regarding which modality of vocabulary knowledge has the strongest correlation to reading, with particular focus on distinctions between testing L2 form and L2 meaning, and between recall of answers from memory and recognition of answers from fixed options. However, relatively little…

While the study of serious games has received due attention, few studies have investigated their potentials of simultaneously offering a route to both content and language acquisition. Understanding the interdisciplinary educational affordance of serious game play is significant, as it might provide game designers and teachers with insight into…

Instructional videos for teaching second language (L2) vocabulary often feature an instructor onscreen. The instructor in the video may involuntarily produce beat gestures with their hands, as occurs in real teaching settings. Beat gestures highlight key information in speech by conveying the rhythm of the language, but do not themselves convey…

Although translanguaging has become a central issue in the multilingual education literature, research on pedagogical translanguaging practices remains underdeveloped. This article describes a study of 72 primary school students (age = 10.68) who participated in an intervention based on translanguaging pedagogies. During the intervention, the…

Because most real-life foreign language speech is naturally unpredictable, spontaneous speech should be practiced in the foreign language classroom. Student teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) may benefit from practising methodology for spontaneous speech practice. This article reports the findings for a study into EFL student…

This research paper attempts to investigate the organization and effectiveness of vocabulary notebooks by distinguishing several benefits the implementation of this technique brings in the acquisition of technical terminology through an "English for Specific Purposes course". When tackling with language learning, it is needless to…

Some listeners exhibit higher sensitivity to subphonemic acoustic differences (i.e., higher speech gradiency). Here, we asked whether higher gradiency in a listener's first language (L1) facilitates foreign language learning and explored the possible sources of individual differences in L1 gradiency. To address these questions, we tested 164…

Assessing vocabulary knowledge is an important part of establishing language proficiency in bilingual children. The crosslinguistic lexical tasks (CLTs) provide a framework for testing vocabulary development in three-to-six year-olds using a standard procedure and comparable items for multiple languages. This study describes the development of the…

This systematic literature review (SLR) aimed to investigate the potential of digital online game-based learning (DOGBL) to enhance motivation in English as a foreign language (EFL). Online gaming has grown in popularity among students, opening up the possibility of using games as powerful instructional resources. Academic achievement depends on…