The present meta-analysis aimed to summarize the extent to which second language vocabulary is learned from the most frequently researched word-focused activities: flashcards, word lists, writing, and fill-in-the-blanks. One hundred effect sizes from 22 studies were included in meta-regression analyses and administered separately for the…

Research has painted a pessimistic picture of students' second language (L2) writing skills in secondary education. One innovative tool that may help students foster their L2 proficiency, including writing ability, is in-class debate. Debate is commonly associated with oral communication and argumentation skills. However, debate may also offer…

This article examines the relationship between language curriculum and learners' subjectivity through a poststructuralist perspective. I use performativity theory to highlight the constituting power of language and integrate it with critical race theory to understand the relationships among curriculum, classroom interaction, and subjectivity…

This article reports the results of the first longitudinal study that systematically investigates the acquisition of verb agreement by hearing learners of a sign language. During a 2-year period, 14 novel learners of Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT) with a spoken language background performed an elicitation task 15 times. Seven deaf native…

This study examined linguistic development among both intermediate and advanced college-level second language (L2) learners during short-term study abroad summer programs in Spain. Participants completed a measure of overall proficiency, as well as assessments of receptive grammatical (morphosyntactic) and lexical (semantic) abilities at the…

Growth language mindsets (i.e., beliefs that language ability can be improved) are found to sustain learners' motivation and resilience in challenging situations. Considering that migrants who are speakers of languages other than the dominant ones often face challenging daily communications, we examined important but understudied questions of…

This study uses a Q methodology to track the changing motivational profiles of 15 Chinese university students simultaneously engaged in second-language (L2) English and third-language (L3) Spanish learning over 1.5 years. Guided by complex dynamic systems theory (CDST), the study aims to investigate the initial trigger that propelled the Chinese…

People often believe that some language varieties are more prestigious than others, which can trigger speech-centered biases and inform social judgments of the speaker. However, it is largely unknown what types of language experience and exposure might mitigate language biases, especially for second language (L2) learners. The goal of this study…

The aim of this study was to investigate deaf and severely hard-of-hearing students' foreign language learning characteristics. In order to provide a better understanding of the challenges this group of learners face, a mixed methods study was designed including a questionnaire survey to provide generalizable results for our context and an…

Learner corpus studies using syntactic complexity as a construct for characterizing learner proficiency have found that higher proficiency permits learners to produce more complex syntactic structures. However, the majority of previous studies have focused on writing, almost exclusively with adult second language (L2) learners. Given the…

The present study investigated the effects of 2 forms of text-based second language (L2) vocabulary glosses, namely dynamic and nondynamic glosses on EFL learners' vocabulary knowledge. Dynamic glosses were operationalized as a set of incrementally ordered mediating annotations designed to help learners identify the correct word definition while…

Recent research in second language acquisition suggests that a number of speed, breakdown, repair, and composite measures reliably assess fluency and predict proficiency. However, there is little research evidence to indicate which measures best characterize fluency at each assessed level of proficiency and which can consistently distinguish one…

In volume 103 of "Modern Language Journal," Stephen May suggested that the "multilingual turn" has not fully delivered on its promises, pointing out second language acquisition (SLA) researchers' continued focus on parallel monolingualisms rather than on dynamic bi/multilingualism, the lack of theorization of historicity in…

While an elicited imitation test (EIT) has been widely used as a measure of oral proficiency in second language acquisition (SLA) research, it is still unclear the extent to which memory capacity impacts EIT performance. In light of this gap, the present study sought to clarify the nature of elicited imitation by examining the relative…

In the coda chapter of the special issue on second language (L2) practice and cognitive psychology, we proposed a theoretical framework for optimizing and researching L2 practice (Suzuki, Nakata, & DeKeyser, 2019). Rogers and Leow's commentary (2020) raised three potential issues regarding this framework, and the present response article aims…