Twenty-five years ago, the author contributed a historical review of evidence on the foreign language (FL) learning problems of low-achieving and learning disabled (LD) students. Educators had proposed a new disability, FL learning disability, and developed policies permitting LD students to substitute courses or waive the FL requirement. The…

The purpose of this qualitative exploratory case study was to explore how The Sims could be used to assist L1 English speakers in learning L2 Russian verbs of motion through completing in-game tasks in pairs while speaking Russian. English and Russian verbs of motion encode manner and path differently, and L2 Russian motion verbs use a variety of…

The emergence of Positive Psychology in second language acquisition has placed greater emphasis on the vital role of engagement in learning English as a foreign language (EFL). Although previous research has established that EFL learners' engagement is affected by ideal L2 self, boredom, and grit respectively, sporadic studies have attempted to…

Vocabulary knowledge plays an important role in language learning and language proficiency, but it is difficult to know how much of a role it plays without appropriate vocabulary measures. In this article, we first discuss learner vocabulary in our research on Korean as a second/foreign language. Unable to find appropriate measures for receptive…

Second language (L2) learning research suggests that virtual reality (VR) has the potential to enhance the development of language skills due to its immersive nature and its situated learning opportunities. This quantitative, between-subjects study compared the effectiveness of three learning conditions. University students (N = 63) studied…

This study investigated motivation in the context of L2 Chinese in the USA. A total of 120 college students took the survey and 27 of them participated in post-survey interviews. Through a mixed-methods design, the study captured interactions between motivation and the learning environment in the learning process. The results revealed six…

Stakeholders in exam-driven countries are responsible for developing test-related tasks to assess the quality of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching and learning. Hence, the language assessment literacy (LAL) of different stakeholders has to be investigated. This mixed-methods study explored the required LAL competencies among two groups…

The present study investigated the relation between continuous measures of two qualitatively different types of bilingual experience and outcome measures that varied in domain (verbal or nonverbal) and processing demands (degree of conflict). Participants were 195 English-speaking children, 7 years old, who were enrolled in French immersion…

This study explored the production of 11 English vowels by Acehnese Indonesian EFL students. Ten undergraduates (five males and five females) from the Pidie District, Aceh, participated, with Acehnese and Bahasa Indonesia as their first languages, and English learned formally at school since the 7th grade. Using PRAAT, recordings of vowel…

This article highlights how Wolfgang Herrndorf's bestselling novel "Tschick" (2010) is particularly well suited for advanced courses focused on cultural and linguistic enrichment. Herrndorf's "Tschick," I argue, facilitates interaction, engagement, and individual interpretation; is linguistically accessible because of its use…

This systematic review addressed the following question: Which are the relations between L1 and/or L2 foundational and upper-level language skills, cognitive skills, high-order cognitive and self-regulation factors and L2-English reading comprehension skills in 11-to-19 year EFL secondary school students with different L1 language profiles?…

The use of automated writing evaluation (AWE) in second language (L2) writing contexts has increased dramatically, as evidenced by the large body of research published on the topic over the past decade. Considering this, several systematic reviews on AWE have been published. Nevertheless, none of these review studies has exclusively focused on the…

ChatGPT can promptly reformulate a text and improve its quality in content and form while preserving the original meaning. Yet, little is known about how learners respond to such reformulations. Here, we employed a three-stage writing task (composing-comparison-rewriting) to investigate how learners notice, integrate, and perceive ChatGPT's…

L2 learner engagement is an emerging but critical construct in the field of psychology of language learning and teaching. However, research on L2 learner engagement has suffered from the inconsistent operationalization of the multidimensional structure of the construct and the conceptual overlap among its different components, making research…

A large number of children are exposed to more than one language. One well-established method of assessing early vocabulary development in monolingual children is parent report; however, its use in bilingual/multilingual contexts is less established and brings unique challenges. In this methodological scoping review, we reviewed studies of early…