This pilot study investigated the attitudes of preservice teachers at a major university in Arizona concerning the Structured English Immersion (SEI) program that is now being used with English language learners (ELLs). Using a survey, we examined how preservice teachers feel about potentially working with ELLs in this SEI context. We focused on…

While there are many options available for studying English as a second language (ESL), students and instructors may not be aware of which learning strategy would be most effective. To help them make informed choices about their education, this study compared traditional classroom methods with online technological methods for studying ESL at…

In this essay, I argue for viewing mental representation and skill as distinct components of language acquisition. My claim is that language is not a monolithic entity--not a new concept, but one that is often overlooked by instructors and some scholars. I examine language as being (minimally) composed of mental representation and skill.…

This study describes the effect of grades on second language writing performance. Do students write better when their essays are graded, and what implications might this have for foreign language instruction? This study compares three different types of student writing: graded compositions; for-credit online discussion boards; and ungraded,…

Purpose: This study was designed to explore the behavioral nature of pragmatic impairment following severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and to evaluate the contribution of executive skills to the experience of pragmatic difficulties after TBI. Method: Participants were grouped into 43 TBI dyads (TBI adults and close relatives) and 43 control…

This study examines the effects of learning context and age on second language development by comparing the language gains, measured in terms of oral and written fluency, lexical and syntactic complexity, and accuracy, experienced by four groups of learners of English: children in a study abroad setting, children in their at-home school, adults in…

This study employed Bachman and Palmer's (2010) Assessment Use Argument framework to investigate to what extent the use of a second language oral test as an exit test in a Hong Kong university can be justified. It also aimed to help test developers of this oral test identify the most critical areas in the current test design that might need…

Recently task-based language teaching has attracted many researchers', testers' and syllabus designers' attention and consequently a lot of studies are carried out in this field. This study was conducted in the task-based realm too. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of teacher's presence on learners' performance in doing…

This teacher-friendly guide is packed with motivating lessons designed to improve the content learning and literacy skills of English language learners (ELLs) in K-8. Offering research-supported strategies that teachers can implement immediately, the book explains how to use content-area texts to support ELLs' growth in five crucial areas:…

This paper investigates the extent to which productive use of formulaic sequences by intermediate students of two typologically different languages, i.e., English and Spanish, is associated with their oral proficiency in these languages. Previous research (e.g., Boers et al., "Language Teaching Research" 10: 245-261, 2006) has shown that…

This study contributes to the research on learner autonomy by examining the relationship between Little's (1991) notions of "independent action" and "decision-making", input, and L2 production in computer-assisted language learning (CALL). Operationalizing "independent action" and "decision-making" with Dam's (1995) definition that focuses on…

In this study we contrasted the Category fluency and Letter fluency performance of 198 normal subjects, 57 Alzheimer's patients and 57 patients affected by traumatic brain injury (TBI). The aim was to check whether, besides the prevalence of Category fluency deficit often reported among Alzheimer's patients, the TBI group presented the opposite…

This study explores dispute sequences in talk between bilingual couples communicating in Japanese. Specifically I examine naturally occurring face-to-face talk between Japanese wives and their American husbands who communicate primarily in Japanese at home. Conversation analysis (CA) is employed to document occasions where the talk between these…

The human brain has the fascinating ability to represent and to process several languages. Although the first and further languages activate partially different brain networks, the linguistic factors underlying these differences in language processing have to be further specified. We investigated the neural correlates of language proficiency in a…

Background: Approximately one-quarter of individuals with fragile X syndrome (FXS) meet diagnostic criteria for autism; however, it is unclear whether individuals with comorbid FXS and autism are simply more severely affected than their peers with only FXS or whether they have qualitatively different profiles of behavioural impairments. To address…