This study focuses on the pedagogical applications of structural priming research in an English for academic purposes (EAP) context, investigating whether priming activities are an effective tool for eliciting production of target grammatical structures. University students across four EAP classes carried out a total of 6 information-exchange…

This study examines the opportunities that a collaborative writing task completed in pairs and in small groups offers for attention to form. Previous research suggests that collaborative writing activities encourage learners to focus their attention on language and to collaborate in the resolution of their language-related problems in ways that…

The current study sets out to investigate collocational knowledge for a set of 13 English amplifiers among native and nonnative speakers of English, by providing a partial replication of one of the projects reported on in Granger (1998). The project combines both phraseological and distributional approaches to research into formulaic language to…

This study examined multimedia instruction (MI) effects on the development of the French prototypical and non-prototypical past forms among Hispanophone learners. During 4 weeks of classroom instruction, participants were exposed to MI in one of 4 conditions: learners at early stages of past-tense development received MI including prototypical (n…

It is intuitively felt that visual cues should enhance online communication, and this experimental study aims to test this prediction by exploring the value provided by a webcam in an online L2 pedagogical teacher-to-learner interaction. A total of 40 French undergraduate students with a B2 level in English were asked to describe in English four…

This study investigated second language (L2) learners' perception of L2 sounds as an individual difference that predicted their improvement in pronunciation after receiving instruction. Learners were given explicit pronunciation instruction in a series of modules added to their Spanish as a foreign language curriculum and were then tested on…

Anxiety and L2 self-confidence have been suggested as vital determinants of willingness to communicate (WTC) in a foreign-language (FL) learning environment. Studies also demonstrate that it is a concern over pronunciation mistakes that is particularly likely to cause embarrassment and apprehension in FL students. Linking these two facts may lead…

This study examined the effect of short-term high-variability phonetic training on the perception of English /b/, /v/, /d/, /ð/, /ae/, /? /, /i/, and /i/ by Catalan/Spanish bilinguals learning English as a foreign language. Sixteen English-major undergraduates were tested before and after undergoing a four-session perceptual training program…

Research on the effectiveness of short-term study-abroad (SA) programs for improving oral skills has shown mixed results. In this study, 24 L2 German learners (L1 English) provided pre- and post-SA speech samples addressing a hypothetical situation and completed surveys on cross-cultural interest and adaptability; L2 communication affect,…

This article poses the following research question: How do multilingual students in higher education negotiate the "multi" in their multilingualism and multiliteracies? The article presents data from a qualitative study conducted with eight multilingual undergraduate university students in which the participants describe their complex…

In recent years the study of second language (L2) vocabulary learning through reading has attracted much attention in the field of L2 acquisition. A specific area that has received wide interest is the examination of the processes involved in deriving word meanings from context. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationships…

The purpose of this study is to analyze the progress of 14 Spanish-speaking learners of English during a period abroad from a longitudinal perspective. Oral and written data were collected three times during an academic year at a British university. These samples were analyzed in terms of fluency, syntactic complexity, lexical richness, and…

Previous research investigating the effects of unassisted and assisted repeated reading has primarily focused on how each approach may contribute to improvement in reading comprehension and fluency. Incidental learning of the form and meaning of unknown or partially known words encountered through assisted and unassisted repeated reading has yet…

This study reports on the development of a professional spoken register among learners of German as they participate in four synchronous Web conferences with German-speaking professionals. The researchers investigated the effect of interaction with expert German speakers combined with an instructional intervention focusing on pragmatic competence…

This article reports an investigation of second language (L2) students' class participation in English-language university courses in two different modes: face-to-face off-line and asynchronous online. The study addressed (1) what characteristics of academic online discourse were created in graduate courses; (2) how students reported their…