Readers are expected to construct balanced mental representations of socioscientific issues discussed across controversial documents. However, readers tend to be biased toward documents that present belief-consistent perspectives and tend to refute documents that argue against their stance (text-belief consistency effect). Published studies on…

The results of a self-paced reading study with advanced German, Dutch and French second language (L2) learners of English showed that their online comprehension of early closure (EC) sentences which are initially misanalysed by native English speakers (e.g. "While John hunted the frightened rabbit escaped") was affected by whether or…

This study examined how longitudinal interaction impacts the development of second language (L2) oral proficiency in relation to learners' different experience and proficiency levels. Japanese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) participated in weekly conversation exchanges with native speakers (NSs) in the USA via videoconferencing…

The use of integrated tasks to test English-speaking skills raises questions about the impact of comprehension on test score outcomes, and the impact of stimulus materials on test-taker strategic behaviours. This study analysed speaking performances and verbal report data to examine the strategies used by test takers at different levels of…

The present study investigated the effects of group set-up in a semester-long telecollaborative discussion forum project in second-semester German. In order to explore whether group set-up affects learning in discussion forums, small groups of non-native speakers (NNS) of German were partnered either with native speakers (NS), other NNS with the…

The goal of this paper is to describe a group of adult Mexican English learners' ideologies about different APPRAISAL patterns in English-language scientific texts. APPRAISAL is a descriptive framework of the linguistic resources used to convey feelings and attitudes (Martin & White, 2005). This topic is particularly interesting in EAP…

The aim of the present study is twofold: first, it compares full-English-medium instruction (EMI) and semi-EMI learners on a series of motivational and emotional factors (the ought to, and the ideal L2 self-motivational orientations, attitudes towards English, and foreign language anxiety and enjoyment). Second, it investigates the relationship…

This article investigates verbal short-term memory (vSTM) and verbal working memory (vWM) abilities and their relation to lexical and syntactic abilities in monolingual (mono-) and bilingual (bi-) children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and typical development (TD). The authors employed the following tasks: vSTM (non-word repetition…

Working memory (WM) limitations are frequently reported for children with specific learning disorder (SLD). However, WM capacity influences more than literacy and numeracy, as research highlights the contribution of WM to language development, in particular syntax. In this article, the authors study the effect of syntactic intervention, i.e.…

Few studies have examined willingness to communicate (WtC) changes resulting from short-term intensive immersion programmes. This study investigated the antecedents to and changes in WtC during one such programme held at a Macau university. The programme required students to reside on campus and participate in extensive task-based communicative…

American classrooms are increasingly heterogeneous linguistically. If all students are to engage in three-dimensional learning, how are educators making classroom assessments accessible and meaningful for emergent bilingual learners? There are few classroom assessment exemplars that embody the NGSS three-dimensional vision of the…

Although the "digital natives" theory is still used to justify the implementation of technologies such as video games in the language classroom, whether digital nativeness (i.e. the extent to which an individual embodies the characteristics attributed to digital natives) may be used as a predictor of digital game-based learning outcomes…

This study examined perceptions of students of the benefits of consciousness-raising tasks (CRT) and communicative tasks (CT) when compared with actual learning outcomes in a Saudi secondary school context. Qualitative data were collected from 60 Saudi speaking learners of English, at various proficiency levels, who had engaged in a sequence of…

The advanced pedagogical experience testifies to the presence of a number of methods in the practice of teaching language disciplines used by teachers during profile training at school or other educational institutions. With the development of modern information technologies, the role of traditional methods of studying language disciplines in the…

This study examines the impact of group composition (one-on-one vs. multiple-to-multiple) and task design (student-selected vs. teacher-assigned) on undergraduate foreign language learners' interactions in a mobile-based intercultural exchange. The participants, 27 Korean students learning English as a foreign language and 27 American students…