As a spoken word unfolds over time, similar sounding words ("cap" and "cat") compete until one word "wins". Lexical competition becomes more efficient from infancy through adolescence. We examined one potential mechanism underlying this development: lexical inhibition, by which activated candidates suppress…

University students, especially language learners, have increasingly been using machine translation (MT) systems in the last decade and for all kinds of texts, including homework, assignments and exams. This ubiquity does not translate into visibility as few teachers address the subject in class. Several researchers have shown that MT systems,…

The use of interactional metadiscourse markers in opinion paragraphs written by A2-level English learners was investigated in this research. Although metadiscourse is commonly studied in discourse analysis, pragmatics, and language teaching, there has been limited attention given to the writing of beginner-level language learners. Metadiscourse is…

This study sets out to investigate possible effects of previously learned languages on the acquisition of English as a third language by examining six prepositions (in, on, at, behind, over, to) when they denote spatial relations. Two picture description tasks were employed to find out which of the two known languages (L1 and/or L2) is the major…

A large amount of literature exists on how native speakers derive and process pragmatic inferences, yet few studies have examined the issue in second language learners, despite a controversial debate of second language (L2) ultimate attainment of phenomena situated at external interfaces. This study contributes to the debate on the integration of…

Despite the important role emotions play in affecting second/foreign language (L2) learners' cognition, such as their learning processes, few empirical studies have tried to find out how emotions affect the four main skills (i.e., listening, speaking, reading, and writing). In order to fill this gap, the present study aims to investigate the…

The purpose of the present study was to investigate if following data-driven learning (DDL) to raise the learners' awareness of discourse organizers through concordancing improves their comprehension of English academic lectures. To address this issue, the current study adopted a quasi-experimental (comparison group, pretest-posttest) design. 96…

English learners (ELs) comprise approximately 10% of kindergarten to Grade 12 students in US public schools, with about 15% of ELs identified as having disabilities. English language proficiency (ELP) assessments must adhere to universal design principles and incorporate universal tools, designed to increase accessibility for all ELs, including…

Teaching vocabularies to young children is critical as vocabulary is related to long-term language, literacy, and academic skills. The current study used a multiple probe design to examine the effects of enhanced milieu teaching with book reading on the use of word approximations in four 2- to 4-year-old females with language delay. The first…

This research investigated six established areas for quality (Ortega-Martín et al., 2018) in the implementation of CLIL programmes in a Spanish monolingual autonomous community from the perspective of its teachers, in particular focusing on possible differences of opinion between content and English language teachers, an understudied area. Both…

This study presents the validation process of a listening test based on a communicative language test proposed by Bachman (Fundamental considerations in language testing, 1990). It was administered to third-grade high school students by the sixteen Korean Provincial Offices of Education for Curriculum and Evaluation in September 2012 to assess…

Many adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) experience challenges in social competence. Evidence suggests that specialized summer camps with social skills training may have positive outcomes on social competence development in adolescents with ADHD. This article reports on a pilot study of a therapeutic summer camp…

Virtual reality (VR) is gaining momentum in language education thanks to technological advances and technology at a cost that is affordable for deploying a learning experience. However, there is a need for more research to identify the topics that are most suitable to be taught using VR in English as a foreign language (EFL) courses. In order to…

Informed by two usage-based approaches, this study investigated to what extent different types of computer-based training facilitated English preposition learning among intermediate Chinese learners of English. The design of the pedagogical materials was informed by the cognitive linguistics (CL) framework while the training format was motivated…

Transferring to a four-year institution is an important pathway to student success. Many students who enroll in community college intend to transfer to a four-year institution and subsequently earn a bachelor's degree. However, few students ultimately do, with low-income students transferring at lower rates than their peers. The Texas Transfer…