Stunting has been negatively associated with children's development. We examined the range of height by testing hypotheses: (a) height is positively associated with children's development, with associations moderated by inflammation and (b) home environments characterized by nurturance and early learning opportunities is positively associated with…

Background: Social and economic aspirations held by parents can reflect a desire for their children to learn English as a second language. Bilingual education has the potential for empowering traditionally disadvantaged groups, particularly through competence in English, a language that positions identity with power, privilege and status, thus…

This article describes the development of "Bande à Part", a mobile music application (app) for second language (L2) learners of French. Our focus on the pedagogical use of music results from the reported benefits that it offers language learners (e.g., it encourages repetitive exposure to the L2 in an enjoyable way, it extends the reach…

Through a strong Montessori orientation to the parameters of spoken language, Joen Bettmann makes the case for "materializing" spoken knowledge using the stimulation of real objects and real situations that promote mature discussion around the sensorial aspect of the prepared environment. She lists specific materials in the classroom…

This study investigates the development of metalinguistic skills, particularly ambiguity detection, and whether training accelerates this development for prereaders in kindergarten (5;5-6;6). It is the first to compare homophone detection with lexically ambiguous sentence detection in which the same homophones appear. The experimental group…

This article probes the extent to which postsecondary Spanish learners can substantively increase their knowledge of Spanish over a two-week period within a context of language and content instruction for four hours per day. The article considers the relationship of an immersion experience to upper-level literature and culture classes. Insights…

Models of language acquisition are constrained by the information that learners can extract from their input. Experiment 1 investigated whether 3-month-old infants are able to encode a repeated, unsegmented sequence of five syllables. Event-related-potentials showed that infants reacted to a change of the initial or the final syllable, but not to…

The present study explores the initial stages of incidental acquisition of two grammatical properties of verbs (subcategorization and [ir]regularity) during reading in first language (L1) and second language (L2) German using an adjusted self-paced reading paradigm. The results indicate that L1 speakers are superior to L2 speakers in the…

Early childhood services which seek to promote early language development are hampered by the absence of reliable methods to identify children who may develop persistent language difficulties. This is because of variability in preschool children's language development and that existing measures have limited diagnostic accuracy. In this study, we…

This research paper tends to focus on comparison and contrast between first and second language learning. It investigates the different factors that have inhibiting influences on the language learning process of the learners in the two different environments. There are many factors involved in this respect. The age factor is one of the vital…

This article reports on perceptions and practices in relation to integrating culture into EFL teaching and how course material was designed within the Thai curriculum framework. Thai teachers' understanding of what constitutes culture, the role it plays in language learning and how such understanding is being translated into pedagogical practices…

Purpose: The acquisition of literacy skills influences the perception and production of spoken language. We examined if orthography influences implicit processing in speech production in child readers and in adult readers with low and high reading proficiency. Method: Children (n = 17), adults with typical reading skills (n = 17), and adults…

The study investigated the similarities and dissimilarities of using pedagogical techniques in classroom interactions, taken place whilst teaching a known language and an unknown language in a CELTA training classroom context. For this purpose, the classroom interactions in unknown and known languages were analysed according to the qualitative…

The parallels between reading and spelling skills in Arabic were tested. One-hundred forty-three native Arab students, with typical reading development, from second, fourth, and sixth grades were tested with reading, spelling and orthographic decision tasks. The results indicated a full parallel between the reading and spelling performances within…

A new solution is offered to the Infant Language Acquisition Problem, rejecting both of Chomsky's alternatives. It proposes that the infant does not acquire his mother tongue by mastering its grammar, whether by inference from personal experience or via an innate Language Acquisition Device such as the UG, but that the language he hears is all…