This study investigates the effects of topical knowledge on ESL (English as a Second Language) writing performance in the English Language Proficiency Index (LPI), a standardized English proficiency test used by many post-secondary institutions in western Canada. The participants were 50 students with different levels of English proficiency…

This study investigates possible changes in students' English language ability by means of a questionnaire administered to 18 experienced university teachers. The questionnaire measures changes in six domains: grammar, reading, listening, speaking, writing, and attitudes. The results of the questionnaire indicate that over the last decade a…

Using nationally-representative, longitudinal data on a cohort of Spanish-speaking English language learners in the U.S., this study investigated the extent to which early oral language proficiency in Spanish and English predicts later levels and rates of growth in English reading. Latent growth models indicated that both Spanish and English…

This article reports on a study that comparatively investigated the differences and similarities in the (incorrect) use of cohesive devices by second-year and fourth-year undergraduate Chinese EFL learners in their argumentative writings. Via detailed analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data, this study seeks to reveal if the patterns of…

Previous research has shown that first language (L1) American English speakers discriminate the Spanish /[alveolar tap]/-/r/ and /[alveolar tap]/-/t/ contrasts significantly better than the /[alveolar tap]/-/d/ contrast, regardless of their proficiency level in Spanish (Rose, 2010a). Therefore, the current study follows the framework of the…

The growing number of English language learners (ELLs) in the United States impacts many middle level teachers who must simultaneously teach content and support language development. Differentiated instruction can provide ways to maintain consistent whole-class learning objectives while meeting the needs of young adolescents learning English as a…

Implicit and explicit knowledge of the second language (L2) are two central constructs in the field of second language acquisition (SLA). In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in obtaining valid and reliable measures of L2 learners' implicit and explicit knowledge (e.g., Bowles, 2011; R. Ellis, 2005). The purpose of the present study…

In five experiments, we examined cross-language activation during speech production in various groups of bilinguals and trilinguals who differed in nonnative language proficiency, language learning background, and age. In Experiments 1, 2, 3, and 5, German 5- to 8-year-old second language learners of English, German-English bilinguals,…

This study aims at examining the relationship between learner creativity and performance in written narrative tasks in the context of Iranian EFL students. To this end, a sample of 222 EFL students from four universities in Mashhad (Iran) participated in this study. Our study involved measuring the participants' creativity using creativity test…

In this study, we investigated the link between the orthographic transparency of a language and the ease or difficulty of acquiring spelling proficiency in that language. The two languages compared are English, with a highly irregular sound-to-print correspondence, and Estonian, a Finno-Ugric language that has one of the most highly regular…

This study examines whether adult second language (L2) learners of an ungendered first language (L1) are sensitive to gender congruency (grammatical feature absent in the L1) and noun animacy (semantic feature present in the L1) when processing L2 gender concord and whether L2 proficiency level determines such sensitivity. To address these…

The goal of this study was to examine to what extent the conditions of restricted input of L2 and SLI have an additive impact on language acquisition. Therefore, the Dutch language achievement of 6-, 7-, and 8-year-old bilingual children with SLI was compared with that of typically developing monolingual Dutch children, typically developing…

In this paper, we study the impact of parental human capital background on ethnic educational gaps between second-generation immigrants using a large data set conducted in France in 2003. Estimates from censored random effect ordered Probit regressions show that the skills of immigrants explain in the most part, the ethnic educational gap between…

The current investigation tested two predictions regarding second language (L2) processing at the syntax-discourse interface: (1) that L2 performance on measures of interface phenomena can differ from that of native speakers; and (2) that cross-linguistic influence can be a source of such divergence. Specifically, we examined the offline…

The present study aims to sensitize SLA researchers to the importance of documenting and controlling for their participants' proficiency in the target language, with the goal of establishing more robust proficiency assessment standards in experimental research. First, this article presents a survey of recent (2000-2008) foreign and second-language…