In Iran the age of learning English as a foreign language is decreasing yearly. It is obvious that learning English at a very early age is a most appropriate time to start. The investigation in this study is focused on the speech act of request. Instructional effects of learning request strategies are assessed in preschoolers who received…

We meta-analyzed the effectiveness of incidental second language word learning from spoken input. Our sample contained 105 effect sizes from 32 primary studies employing meaning-focused word-learning activities with 1,964 participants with typical cognitive functioning. The random-effects meta-analysis yielded a mean effect size of g = 1.05,…

The study examined the role of phonological awareness and morphological awareness in concurrent and subsequent oral vocabulary among Chinese-English bilingual children who learned Chinese as their heritage language and English as their societal language. Ninety-one Chinese-English bilingual children in kindergarten and Grade 1 who were recruited…

Children are known to use different types of referential gestures (e.g., deictic, iconic) from a very young age. In contrast, their use of non-referential gestures is not well established. This study investigated the use of "stroke-defined non-referential" 'beat' gestures in a story-retelling and an exposition task by twelve 6-year-olds,…

This study examined the relations between and predictive power of three important subcomponents skills of reading comprehension: decoding, listening comprehension, and reading fluency. Through a series of structural equation models, we examine the relations within a full sample of first grade students at the beginning of the year (N = 290). Next,…

The purpose of this study is to find out if there is a correlation between the anxiety of a foreign language in nursing students and their performance in an oral examination, and if it exists, how strong is that correlation. It also aims to examine the effect that different levels of anxiety have on students' oral test scores and how students feel…

This paper examines whether a web-based training on English discourse intonation leads to better spontaneous speech quality for Mandarin Chinese speakers who reside in the U.S. and in China. The four-week fully online training consisted of meta-instruction videos as well as listening and speaking activities, including instant visual pitch contour…

This qualitative case study examined the interactions between four Mexican parents from immigrant backgrounds and their children during the process of creating two biliteracy family projects that centered on their experiential knowledge. Informed by a theoretical lens of sociocultural linguistics and community cultural wealth, this study examined…

This study investigated the relationship between balanced multilingualism and working memory. Specifically, it reports on the relationship between balanced proficiency in speaking, reading and comprehension (across three languages), and verbal and visuospatial working memory in young South African adults. Information about participants' language…

The proliferation of assisted technology has been widely used in language learning, but this should be able to accommodate inclusive language learning which has become an important issue in today's English language teaching and the higher education landscape in Indonesia. This study examined the perception of EFL slow learners in terms of the…

Purpose: This was an investigation of the dimensionality of oral and written language to test the hypothesis that a two-factor model with sound/word and sentence/discourse language levels would best fit language and literacy data for a population-based sample in the school-age years. Method: A stratified secondary data set of 1,500 participants…

This study investigates the potential of asynchronous video-mediated oral book report assignments to enhance learners' spoken performance and decrease their speaking anxiety. The participants were 42 B1 level preparatory students from the English Language Teaching department who were taking skills-based intensive English education in Turkey. The…

Purpose: Specific language impairment (SLI; see also developmental language disorder) and dyslexia are separate, yet frequently co-occurring disorders that confer risks to reading comprehension and academic achievement. Until recently, most studies of one disorder had little consideration of the other, and each disorder was addressed by different…

Background: Every language has certain specific idiosyncrasies in its writing system. Cross-linguistic analyses of alexias and agraphias are fundamental to understand commonalities and differences in the brain organization of written language. Few reports of alexias and agraphias in the Spanish language are currently available. Aims: To analyse…

The research concerns the problem of mastering English voice production skills in oral interpretation of the authentic belles-lettres texts. The purpose of the paper is to present the teaching algorithm of training future English language and literature teachers' skills in decoding and orally interpreting verbalised English voice prosodic…