This review article surveys recent developments and validation activities related to four large-scale tests of L2 English ability: the iBT TOEFL, the IELTS, the FCE, and the TOEIC. In addition to describing recent changes to these tests, the paper reports on validation activities that were conducted on the measures. The results of this research…

This paper reviews developments in qualitative research in language teaching since the year 2000, focusing on its contributions to the field and identifying issues that emerge. Its aims are to identify those areas in language teaching where qualitative research has the greatest potential and indicate what needs to be done to further improve the…

A controversial issue in bilingual research is whether in the early stages of L2 learning, access to the conceptual system involves mediation of L1 lexical representations [Kroll, J. F., & Stewart, E. (1994). Category interference in translation and picture naming: Evidence for asymmetric connections between bilingual memory representations.…

Institutions of higher education teach fewer languages, in less secure ways, for less time per week, for shorter periods, by an increasingly casually employed staff, in often underfunded, underappreciated and under stress modes, but participants in the Australian Academy of the Humanities' "Beyond the Crisis: Revitalising Languages in…

We examined how the semantics of causal expressions in Russian and English might differ and how these differences might lead to changes in the way second language learners understand causal expressions in their first language. According to the dynamics model of causation (Wolff, 2007), expressions of causation based on CAUSE verbs (make, force)…

Recent studies in usage-based linguistics have found that construction learning is more effective when input is skewed toward a prototypical exemplar of the construction, thereby reflecting the frequency distribution in natural language. This study investigates the extent to which a prototypical ditransitive verb with high frequency ("give")…

When teachers hear the word "cohesion", they usually think of grammatical cohesion--an aspect of cohesion reasonably well covered in student books and teacher materials. However, occupying an area that straddles both lexis "proper" and cohesion lies "lexical cohesion". In what follows, it is argued that the teaching and learning of certain aspects…

In this article, Lardiere responds to peer comments regarding her earlier article "Some Thoughts on the Contrastive Analysis of Features in Second Language Acquisition" (EJ831786). Lardiere acknowledges the reviewers' thoughtful contributions and expert expansion on various facets of the original article. While she states that it is clear from the…

Since the beginning, second language acquisition (SLA) studies have been predominantly cognitive in their theoretical assumptions and programmatic agendas. This is still largely true today. In this paper, we set out our proposals for learning talk analysis (LTA). LTA synthesizes insights from linguistic philosophy, ethnomethodology, conversation…

Dialogue journals (DJ) are used in a variety of educational settings, and the literature on them is vast. Teachers who have implemented the DJ in their classes report that reading the learners' entries and responding to them is a pleasant activity. Through writing back and forth in the journal, they get to know the learners, and all participants…

Using a data set specifically tailored to homework research, with a sample of 1275 students from 70 classes in Switzerland, the association between homework and achievement in French as a second language was tested at three levels (class level, between-student level, and within-student level). The strength and direction of the homework-achievement…

Higher education plays a fundamental role in the construction of a European citizenship that demands the development of plurilingual competences. Although the Bologna Process highlights that development (relating it to mobility, employability and lifelong learning), language education does not seem to be a priority in the agenda of higher…

There has always been a debate around the issue of what it is that improves learning: the instruction itself or the media used for it (Clark 1983; Kozma 1994). It has also been said (Kulik and Kulik 1991; Andrewartha & Wilmot 2001) that computer mediated learning, as opposed to traditional instruction, positively influences the students'…

Despite an increasing need for culturally relevant curricula, what is considered culturally responsive and how it is assessed is under-researched. The present study examined the perceived cultural responsiveness and effectiveness of an early intervention program designed to teach early language skills and expose students to Indigenous culture, the…

Research and development of a new type of scoring rubric for the integrated speaking tasks of "TOEFL iBT"® are described. These "analytic rating guides" could be helpful if tasks modeled after those in TOEFL iBT were used for formative assessment, a purpose which is different from TOEFL iBT's primary use for admission…