A questionnaire study was conducted to examine how 120 highly experienced EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers in Japan adjust their pronunciation in order to facilitate and refine their students' learning skills to approach mutual intelligibility in second language (L2) classrooms (i.e. "pronunciation-specific teacher talk").…

Despite a number of research studies investigating the Yes-No vocabulary test format, one main question remains unanswered: What is the best scoring procedure to adjust for testee overestimation of vocabulary knowledge? Different scoring methodologies have been proposed based on the inclusion and selection of nonwords in the test. However, there…

Based on fieldwork at a weekend Japanese language school in the USA in 2007-2009, this article illustrates the ways in which different regimes of government arise from an activity depending on meanings individuals invest in it. We examine how two students in the same classroom experienced two different regimes of government: one of a low-track…

It is often observed that most international students are less likely to express their opinions in class. The lack of communicative engagement has negative impacts on students' academic performance. The objective of this article was to explore a range of possible explanations for international students' lack of engagement in class discussions and…

Grammar instruction is at the center of the target language (TL) and code-switching debate. Discussion revolves around whether grammar should be taught in the TL or using the TL and the native language (L1). This study investigated the effects of French-only grammar instruction and French/English grammar instruction on elementary-level students'…

A general advantage in proficiency has been repeatedly reported for learners receiving Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) when compared to learners who only receive English lessons. However, fine-grained studies addressing the aspects which make up this general advantage are still scarce. Within this context, this paper concentrates…

The purpose of this study was to utilize an invented rule with English language learners (ELLs) in a clinical setting to determine differences based on language and age of the children. The performance was correlated with teacher reports of strong and weak language learning. Using a within-participants design, ELLs of age three to five were taught…

This study aims to investigate the effect of different types of glosses as well as no-gloss and glossed texts on L2 vocabulary learning. A total of 90 university students in Korea participated in this study. They were randomly divided into groups according to three different conditions: no gloss, L1 gloss, and L2 gloss. Students were first asked…

This article reports on a study that explored the relationship between reading proficiency and the cultural relevance of text for adolescent English language learners. The author presents a rubric that was used to help determine cultural relevance. Participants used this rubric to rate the cultural relevance of 2 stories. Although the stories were…

This study investigates the benefits of collaborative writing tasks. Previous research from the perspective of the sociocultural theory of mind suggests that writing tasks completed in pairs offer learners an opportunity to collaborate in the solution of their language-related problems, co-construct new language knowledge, and produce…

This study examined object clitic pronouns (OCPs) and verb inflections in twenty-five school-age children with typical development (TD) and twenty children with bilingual language impairment (BLI). MANOVA and ANOVA were used to explore differences according to grade level and language status (TD vs. BLI). Although children with BLI produced higher…

Adults and children learning a second language show difficulty accessing expressive vocabulary that appears accessible receptively in their first language (L1). We call this discrepancy the receptive-expressive gap. Kindergarten Spanish (L1)-English (L2) sequential bilinguals were given standardized tests of receptive and expressive vocabulary in…

This article reports on the results of a research study that investigated Cantonese English as a second language (ESL) learners' perception of English speech sounds, their perceived relations between "similar" English and Cantonese sounds, as well as the applicability of the claims of the Speech Learning Model (SLM) to second language…

This article offers a fine-grained investigation of how first-language (L1) phonetics involving English rhotics affect Spanish rhotic production by second-language (L2) learners. Specifically, this study investigates how different L1 English rhotic articulatory routines (retroflex-like and bunched-like) and the phonetic context that produces…

In this paper, we review empirical research on language teaching at a distance, published between 2005 and 2010. After compiling a list of journals, we went through a multi-stage process of analyzing relevant studies. This overview of research is based on twenty-four articles. The content analysis of research studies led our inquiry on topics…