One of the most enduring questions in the field of bilingualism is whether bilingual infants and children initially have one language system or two. Research with adults indicates that, while bilinguals do not represent their languages in two fully encapsulated language systems, they are able to functionally differentiate their languages. This…

Over the past several decades, researchers have discovered a great deal of information about the processes underlying language acquisition. From as early as they can be studied, infants are sensitive to the nuances of native-language sound structure. Similarly, infants are attuned to the visual and conceptual structure of their environments…

In the past 15 years, a substantial body of evidence has confirmed that a powerful distributional learning mechanism is present in infants, children, adults and (at least to some degree) in nonhuman animals as well. The present article briefly reviews this literature and then examines some of the fundamental questions that must be addressed for…

The range, variety, or diversity of words found in learners' language use is believed to reflect the complexity of their vocabulary knowledge as well as the level of their language proficiency. Many indices of lexical diversity have been proposed, most of which involve statistical relationships between types and tokens, and which ultimately…

The effect of age of acquisition on ultimate attainment in second language learning has been a controversial topic for years. After providing a very brief overview of the ideas that are at the core of the controversy, I discuss the two main reasons why these issues are so controversial: conceptual misunderstandings and methodological difficulties.…

It is generally accepted that second language (L2) acquisition becomes more difficult as one grows older and that success in adult L2 acquisition is highly variable. Nevertheless, humans in language contact situations have to cope with intergroup communication. This article examines the ways society has responded to this challenge. It describes…

Ortega (2011) has argued that second language acquisition is stronger and better after the social turn. Of the post-cognitive approaches she reviews, several focus on the social context of language learning rather than on language as the central phenomenon. In this article, we present Practice Theory not as yet another approach to language…

Although statistical learning and language have been assumed to be intertwined, this theoretical presupposition has rarely been tested empirically. The present study investigates the relationship between statistical learning and language using a within-subject design embedded in an individual-differences framework. Participants were administered…

Although research has consistently shown that a bilingual's two languages interact on multiple levels, it is also well-established that bilinguals can vary considerably in their proficiency in the second language (L2). In this paper we review empirical studies that have examined how differences in L2 proficiency modulate cross-language…

A considerable number of studies on focus-on-form instruction, corrective feedback and uptake have been carried out in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) research over the last two decades. These studies have investigated the above-mentioned concepts from different perspectives, in a number of different contexts and in a number of…

A decade ago, Klapper (2003: "Taking communication to task? A critical review of recent trends in language teaching", "The Language Learning Journal" 27: 33-42) created the opportunity to reflect on the assets and limitations of task-based language teaching (TBLT) in comparison with more established communicative language…

Language teachers are working in a world which has changed in the past decades in fundamentally disruptive ways, through profound changes in the role that networked computers play in everyday life and through the social and demographic shifts brought on by an increasingly globalized society, bringing together more than ever before people from…

Laufer and Nation (1995) proposed that the Lexical Frequency Profile (LFP) can estimate the size of a second-language writer's productive vocabulary. Meara (2005) questioned the sensitivity and the reliability of LFPs for estimating vocabulary sizes, based on the results obtained from probabilistic simulations of LFPs. However, the underlying…

This study explored learners' self-generated noticing of L2 input. It is motivated by previous research on input enhancement which suggested that learners are able to notice certain aspects of input on their own without any external means to direct their attention. Drawing on insights that learner-generated noticing is largely mediated by…

This article analyzes whether the distribution of the hours of classroom practice has any effect on students' foreign language gains by comparing two types of EFL (English as a foreign language) programs: one in which the hours of instruction are distributed in long sessions over a short period (intensive course) and another in which the students…