L2 sounds present different kinds of challenges to learners at the phonetic, phonological, and lexical levels, but previous studies on L2 tone learning mostly focused on the phonetic and lexical levels. The present study employs an innovative technique to examine the role of prior tonal experience and musical training on forming novel abstract…

While an elicited imitation test (EIT) has been widely used as a measure of oral proficiency in second language acquisition (SLA) research, it is still unclear the extent to which memory capacity impacts EIT performance. In light of this gap, the present study sought to clarify the nature of elicited imitation by examining the relative…

We assessed the effect of bilingualism on metacognitive processing in the artificial language learning task, in 2 experiments varying in the difficulty to segment the language. Following a study phase in which participants were exposed to the artificial language, segmentation performance was assessed by means of a dual forced-choice recognition…

Low-stakes assessments are theorised to stimulate and support self-regulated learning. They are feedback-, not decision-oriented, and should hold little consequences to a learner based on their performance. The use of low-stakes assessment as a learning opportunity requires an environment in which continuous improvement is encouraged. This may be…

This book examines the use of tasks in second language instruction in a variety of international contexts, and addresses the need for a better understanding of how tasks are used in teaching and program-level decision-making. The chapters consider the key issues, examples, benefits and challenges that teachers, program designers and researchers…

Knowing how to use digital technologies to pursue interests and create academic, civil, and economic opportunities is critical to meet the demands of the 21st century workplace. In India, the digital divide exists, as reflected both in the lack of infrastructure and the lack of knowledge needed to use that infrastructure to pursue one's interests.…

Traditionally, Basque has three voiceless affricates that are different in their place of articulation. More precisely, affricates can have a lamino-alveolar, apico-alveolar, and prepalatal place of articulation and the graphemes used to represent them are respectively. Likewise, Basque has been described as having three fricatives with the same…

Purpose: Environmental social work (ESW) is an approach and a perspective in social work focusing on ecological and environmental sustainability and justice within the context of sustainable development (SD). This study aims to analyse students' reflective tasks on challenges for ESW education and practice from a critical theory perspective. The…

In this study, I examined how 34 Spanish-speaking English language learners (ELLs) used their linguistic resources (English and Spanish) and language modes (oral and written language) to demonstrate their knowledge of proportional reasoning in a dual language mathematics assessment task. The assessment allows students to see the item in both…

Task-based language teaching (TBLT) is one of the most effective approaches to language teaching. Teachers should provide students with task-based activities which will motivate students to learn. Task-based writing instruction provides educators with effective ways to integrate social and emotional skills with writing skills. The contemporary…

The Matthew effects suggest that children who struggle when learning to read are less likely to read for pleasure later in life compared to children who ease into reading quickly. One aspect of early literacy instruction that might hamper reading progress is learning to read simultaneously in two languages. Despite the long-lasting and widespread…

Bilingual children with a limited command of the second language (L2) often yield unsatisfactory results in L2-based non-word repetition tasks (NWRT) for the assessment of working memory. In this study, monolinguals (MO) and bilinguals (BI) of preschool age acquiring German were compared in regard to their performance on German-based NWRT to…

This study builds on prior research on second language (L2) Spanish psych verbs, which has centered on morphosyntactic properties, by examining their syntactic distribution, which relies on lexical semantic knowledge. The fact that certain forms are licensed for some verbs, but not others, is the result of an underlying lexical semantic difference…

One of the challenges of understanding the complexity of so-called reform mathematics instruction lies in the observational tools used to capture it. This article introduces a unique tool, drawing from commognitive theory, for describing classroom discussions. The Realization Tree Assessment tool provides an image of a classroom discussion,…

This study investigates the acquisition of null subjects by Mandarin Chinese native speakers ('Chinese NSs' hereafter), with different levels of L2 English proficiency, at initial stages of L3 Italian acquisition. The aim is to find out if, when acquiring Italian null subjects, Chinese NSs resort to their L1, which, like the L3, allows null…