This qualitative comparative case study investigates the links between parental motivations and young (aged 4-12) heritage language learners' heritage language school attendance. The study aimed to understand parental motivations, drawing on the instrumental and integrative motivation framework. The study addresses two research questions: 1) Why…

In acquiring a native language, the input children receive, to an unneglectable extent, shapes the rate of acquisition and the ultimate achievement. This in turn has cascading effects on many aspects of later development, including but not limited to language. Providing optimal input for early language development, therefore, is of major interest…

The number of conceptually bilingual daycare centers has been steadily increasing in Switzerland, a traditionally multilingual country. Yet, the focus on the languages introduced in these institutions has largely remained on one national language -- and English. We look at how English and -- in our case -- German are employed in daycare centers…

Both language input and output are important to child language learners' heritage language development. Nevertheless, existing studies mainly focus on language input, leaving the significance of language output underexplored. The current study assessed 201 kindergarteners' Mandarin skills (i.e., receptive vocabulary, receptive grammar, and verbal…

In "Emile," Rousseau advances significant ideas about language, language learning and teaching: He posits a universal natural language that develops as the child matures; focuses on 'private' words invented by children, on the challenge facing children in their understanding of exceptions to general rules of the mother tongue and on…

The aim of this study is to conduct a content analysis of theses on the Turkish Language Teaching Curriculum conducted between 2002 and 2023 in Turkey. The study includes the theses available in the National Thesis Center database and accessible to other researchers. We employed a qualitative research approach and its e method of document analysis…

Most deaf children have hearing parents who do not know a sign language at birth and are at risk of limited language input during early childhood. Studying these children as they learn a sign language has revealed that timing of first-language exposure critically shapes language outcomes. But the input deaf children receive in their first language…

Research on Spanish heritage language (SHL) education has grown exponentially in the last two decades. The most recent nationwide study on SHL programs in US postsecondary institutions was conducted a decade ago. To continue this line of research, the primary aim of this study is to provide an update about the current state of SHL course offerings…

Language classroom anxiety is a significant concern for applied linguists and English language teachers. As an affective variable, foreign language anxiety has the potential to harm learners' language learning and performance. While the impact of language anxiety on the academic achievement of learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) has…

The purpose of this corpus-based study is a bottom-up investigation of strategic devices used by heritage language speakers (HLSs) during narration and conversation. It offers a critical review of compensation/communication strategy definitions and classifications, and presents the results of an investigation into strategies employed by an…

In two visual world eye-tracking experiments, this dissertation examines the role of literacy on predictive processing during spoken language comprehension. Previous studies have shown that comprehenders can use morphosyntactic cues available in the input to generate predictions about upcoming information. Recent key findings also suggest that…

Characterised by media saturation and hypermobility, contemporary society has presented polymedia as an integral element of family life. The expansion and recognition of polymedia in language learning calls for exploring its role in heritage language (HL) maintenance. However, despite growing research interest in polymedia in diverse realms, there…

Framed by family language policy (FLP), in conjunction with the Douglas Fir Group's ecological transdisciplinary framework for second language acquisition, this multiple case study investigates the FLPs of two Hmong-American families in relation to a Hmong-English dual-language program (DLP) where their children are enrolled. Interviews,…

The strong association of early language skills to later reading ability suggests that supporting the development of these skills in children who enter preschool or kindergarten with below-average language abilities may lead to stronger reading skills. Despite this, few evidence-based supplemental language instructional programs exist for…

Contrary to prevailing research on willingness to communicate (WTC) which treats spoken second language (L2) as the predominant indicator of WTC, this study examines a young English as a second language (ESL) learner's WTC expressed through multimodal means and her utilization of multimodal and multilingual resources for mediating WTC in…