This meta-analysis of 79 studies evaluates the effectiveness of high variability phonetic training (HVPT) for the development of second language (L2) speech perception and explores learner-related and methodological variables that influence training effects. The overall medium-to-large effects of HVPT on L2 speech perception support the effectiveness of HVPT, for both pretest-posttest comparison (g

Lexical proficiency in a second language (L2) has long been effectively assessed through the measurement of various lexical indices, or textual characteristics that act as observable indicators of such conceptual categories as lexical richness, diversity, sophistication, and fluency. While many studies have established links between these lexical characteristics and levels of overall language proficiency

We investigated how previous languages and learner individual differences impact L3 word knowledge. The participants were 93 L1-Polish learners of L2-English and L3-Italian. We tested participants’ knowledge of 120 L3-Italian words: 40 L2–L3 cognates, 40 L1–L2–L3 cognates, and 40 non-cognates, controlled for many item-related variables. The knowledge and online processing of the L3 words were measured

Acquisition of reading skill in a second language (L2) requires development and coordinated use of multiple component skills. This acquisition is less effortful the more similar the first language (L1) of the L2 learner is to that L2. While ways to quantify the L1–L2 distance are well defined in the current literature, the theoretical status of this distance in models of L2 reading acquisition is under-specified

Bilingual adults use semantic context to manage cross-language activation while reading. An open question is how lexical, contextual and individual differences simultaneously constrain this process. We used eye-tracking to investigate how 83 French–English bilinguals read L2-English sentences containing interlingual homographs (chat) and control words (pact). Between subjects, sentences biased target

The prevalence of digital technologies, augmented by the emergence of generative AI, expands opportunities for language learning and use, empowers new modes of learning, and blurs the boundaries of in-class and out-of-class language learning. The language education community is challenged to reconceptualize the paradigm of language learning and utilize the affordances of technologies to synergize in-class

Guided by Foucault's concept of “discursive formations,” the study reported here draws on primary archival and secondary source material to examine how French has been discursively shaped in England and in relation to English. Unpacking sociohistorical constructions of sameness–difference offers a productive frame to explore ideological positionings in new, interdisciplinary ways that have thus far

Domestic immersion (DI) is an effective context for postsecondary language learning, given that DI's instructor‐curated environments promote meaningful second language use while providing abundant support for learners. However, DI is at present understudied within second language acquisition research, especially when compared to its more well‐known counterpart of study abroad (SA). This review focuses

The construct of second language (L2) utterance fluency is typically operationalized through various individual temporal features. However, in natural speech, fluency (or disfluency) is often characterized by the clustering of multiple temporal features, collectively revealing the speaker’s effort in speech production or disfluency recovery. In this study, we explore the co-occurrence patterns of disfluency

Many scholars have identified teacher education (TE) as a crucial site for strengthening the research–practice interface. Much of this work has focused on formal TE opportunities, English‐language instructors, or university‐level contexts. Less is known about how other educator demographics engage with second language (L2) research throughout their careers. This mixed‐method study explores how K–12

Study abroad (SA) is touted for providing language learners with regular exposure to a second language (L2) in naturalistic settings. However, few studies have examined how interaction occurs in situ. This study analyzed 13 hours of naturalistic dyadic conversations self‐recorded by 15 US‐based undergraduate sojourners studying abroad for one semester in Spain. Conversations were analyzed for interaction

This study investigated the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) models and signal detection processes to generate meaningful visual and ChatGPT‐like narrative feedback on second language (L2) English intelligibility. To test the effects and perceptions of such techniques, three groups of learners (N = 90) received visual and narrative feedback (n = 30), visual‐only feedback (n = 29), and no feedback

History is littered with unfulfilled promises that emerging technologies – from radios to televisions, and from computers to mobile phones – would completely transform teaching and learning. Now the same promises are being made of generative artificial intelligence (AI). This presentation argues that we should not be focusing on educational revolution, but instead on educational evolution. Education

The present study investigates whether congruency facilitation and figurative interference—two counteractive effects—persist in L2 collocational processing when both congruency and figurativeness are present. A primed lexical decision task was administered to 44 L1‐Chinese L2‐English learners and 40 L1‐English speakers to assess response times for figurative congruent collocations, along with their

Code-blending is the simultaneous expression of utterances using both a sign language and a spoken language. We expect that like code-switching, code-blending is linguistically constrained and thus we investigate two hypothesized constraints using an acceptability judgment task. Participants rated the acceptability of code-blended utterances designed to be consistent or inconsistent with these hypothesized

We investigated which objective language proficiency tests best predict the language dominance, balance, English and Spanish proficiency scores relative to Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) scores (averaged across 5–6 raters). Eighty Spanish–English bilinguals completed OPIs, picture naming, semantic and letter fluency, lexical decision tests and a language history questionnaire. Except for letter fluency

Graded readers (GRs) are a popular language-learning resource, as they provide contextualized input adapted to any level. Still, their creation process is non-systematic and their quantity is limited. This article investigates, firstly, the progression of linguistic complexity in a series of Spanish GRs of consecutive levels, and secondly, whether literary works (LWs) targeted at specific age groups

Notwithstanding the wide consensus that English-medium instruction (EMI) in European higher education has grown explosively since the turn of the century (Wächter, B., and Maiworm, F. 2014. English-taught programmes in European higher education: The state of play in 2014. Bonn: Lemmens), there has been little research which addresses issues related to operationalizing EMI, nor has a pan-European update

Despite the central role of language teacher educators (LTEs) in contributing to the development of language teachers in higher education and non-higher education contexts, there is a lack of theoretical and empirical work on their professional lives. One such area that remains largely unexplored concerns the psychology of LTEs. This paper argues for the need to embrace a research program that systematically

The adjustment of syntactic and phraseological complexity is a key consideration in text adaptation. However, research on this topic in the context of Chinese as a second language (CSL) remains limited. Using 700 CSL reading texts graded following the newly issued Chinese Proficiency Grading Standards for International Chinese Language Education, this study examines differences in syntactic and phraseological

We investigate the processing of scalar inferences in first language (L1) and second language (L2). Expanding beyond the common focus on the scalar inference from ‘some’ to ‘not all’, we examine six scalar expressions: ‘low’, ‘scarce’, ‘might’, ‘some’, ‘most’ and ‘try’. An online sentence-picture verification task was used to measure the frequency and time course of scalar inferences for these expressions

Language learner attitudes have been linked to motivation, willingness to communicate, and attainment in second language (L2) learning research. Yet, explorations of learner attitudes remain scarce, especially concerning learners’ perspectives on the language instruction they receive in schools. To contribute to a more complete picture of L2 English instruction, we gathered data from 2,721 adolescent

This study investigates cross-linguistic influence in bilingual children, examining whether activation of a bilingual’s other language or a structure from that language leads to differences in the magnitude of cross-linguistic influence. We triangulate evidence from both across-language and within-language priming experiments conducted with 36 Italian–Greek bilingual children aged 7 to 11. We designed

This study explores how sentiment analysis, a natural language processing technique, can help to assess the accuracy of interpreting learners’ renditions. The data was obtained from a corpus consisting of 22 interpreting learners’ performance over a training period of 11 weeks and comparable professional interpreters’ performance used as a reference. The sentiment scores of learners’ output were calculated

Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools are reshaping academic writing, yet their impact on disciplinary voice in writing for publication remains underexplored. This study examines the integration of AI in a writing-for-publication course, using a pedagogical framework that emphasizes human-human interaction to develop feedback-seeking strategies. Fifty-five linguistically and disciplinarily diverse doctoral

Language is a fundamental part of students’ culture and identity, significantly impacting their academic experiences. Minoritized students often face linguistic discrimination through prescriptive ideologies or deficit views of their linguistic abilities. Latinx students, particularly, may encounter negative ideologies that undermine their bilingualism portraying them as incapable of speaking either

This study explored the role of dinner table conversations in language socialization within three Chinese immigrant families in the U.S., examining how these interactions shape linguistic competence and cultural transmission. Analysis of audio recordings revealed that children in these families actively participated in language socialization, with older children playing a key role in socializing younger

This study explores how word frequency affects verb‐mediated prediction in L1 and L2 speakers, using a visual‐world eye‐tracking task. By manipulating frequency of nouns within subjects (higher; lower) and type of verbs used as predictive cues (semantically restrictive; neutral) in sentences (e.g., The {doctor/surgeon} {opened/moved} the box), we investigated the impact of frequency of early‐processed

This review on English language teaching (ELT) in Singapore examines 159 empirical research studies published between 2017 and 2023 in both internationally recognised peer-reviewed journals and less well-known regional journals. With this comprehensive review, we aim to raise awareness of ELT research in Singapore for international, regional, and local readership. This will also serve as a starting

We examined the morphosyntactic prediction ability of child heritage speakers and the role of reading skills and language experience in predictive processing. Using visual world eye-tracking, we focused on predictive use of case-marking cues in Turkish with monolingual (N = 49, MAGE = 83 months) and heritage children, who were early bilinguals of Turkish and Dutch (N = 30, MAGE = 90 months). We found

Many bilinguals speak both languages proficiently and habitually; however, the contexts in which the languages are used can vary. The present study examined the effects of context variation on emotions, comparing a national language used everywhere to a regional language spoken only among family and friends. We found a higher sensitivity to disgust (Experiment 1), a greater enjoyment of humor (Experiment

Skill acquisition theory conceptualizes second language (L2) learning in three stages (declarative, procedural, and automatic), yet competing theoretical models with fewer stages also exist, and the number of stages has never actually been tested. We tested the validity of the three-stage model by investigating the number and nature of learning stages in L2 skill acquisition. Seventy-three participants

This article advocates for the expansion of research into the topic of well-being in language education. It begins by outlining key definitional concerns and then moves to outline general issues and gaps in the current body of research such as a need for a diversification in research in social contexts, working conditions, languages, cultures, as well as a clarification of the domain specificity of

Analyses in vocabulary research should avoid the language‐as‐a‐fixed‐effect fallacy, whereby no statistical evidence is provided to support claimed generalizations beyond the words tested in the sample. Although mixed‐effects models are widely adopted in social sciences to avoid this fallacy, second language vocabulary researchers primarily conduct potentially problematic fixed‐effects analyses. In

Bilingualism delays the onset of dementia symptoms and contributes to cognitive reserve. However, the neural basis of this mechanism remains elusive. The few studies that have investigated neural mechanisms of cognitive reserve and bilingualism have focused on Alzheimer’s disease. This study investigated the neural basis of cognitive reserve among persons with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) using regional

Sometimes we face material or practical troubles that require assistance from others to be resolved. While assistance can be mobilized through requests for assistance, it can also be mobilized through complaints. However, while L2 requests have been the object of numerous studies, there has been very little work examining how complaints can be used by L2 speakers to mobilize assistance. In this article

In this article, we examine how migrants with a language other than English background are exposed to linguistic discrimination in relation to the English-only discourse of their daily life in Australia, labelling such discrimination as everyday linguicism. By engaging in a scholarly conversation on subjectivity, discourse, and power, we conceptualize and make use of the notion linguicized subjectivity

This paper introduces the concept of AI-textuality that extends Bakhtin’s notion of intertextuality to encompass interactions involving texts produced by generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). Intertextuality provides a valuable lens for understanding how GenAI outputs are created through the assemblage of digital and multimodal texts from vast datasets. Building on this perspective, this paper

Instructed second language acquisition (ISLA) inquiry emphasizes the ways in which systematic manipulation of learning conditions may facilitate second language (L2) acquisition. ISLA research has tended to prioritize grammar and vocabulary over pronunciation. However, an increase in classroom‐based pronunciation research has begun to address this oversight. Within ISLA inquiry, themes of interest

Language learning behaviors, such as procrastination and engagement, are concrete actions closely linked to learning outcomes, but our understanding of them, especially procrastination, is limited. Boredom is a ubiquitous negative emotion among second language (L2) learners. In researching learning behaviors and boredom, previous L2 studies have rarely considered all the core motivational variables

In our critical review, we explore the progress of second language (L2) teaching research in Japan from 2019 to 2023, focusing particularly on English Language Teaching (ELT) and Japanese Language Teaching (JLT). After scrutinising numerous publications from over 50 academic journals, as well as academic books and chapters, we selected around 40 studies for analysis. These studies met our screening

The present study investigated students’ perceptions of the presence or absence of Afro-Latinx representation in Spanish language textbooks and their suggestions for improving these representations. Critical race theory, critical language awareness, and critical discourse analysis were the theoretical frameworks guiding the study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted among 15 Spanish language

While researchers in the second language (L2) field often consider that L2 anxiety determines subsequent L2 achievement, an emerging line of research suggests that language skills better predict L2 anxiety. This viewpoint has yet to be experimentally evaluated, and thus it motivated the present study. Two groups of university language students enrolled in the Department of English as an L2 were followed

This methodological synthesis surveys study and instrument quality in L2 pronunciation research by scrutinizing methodological practices in designing and employing scales and rubrics that measure accentedness, comprehensibility, and intelligibility. A comprehensive coding scheme was developed, and searches were conducted in several databases. A total of 380 articles (409 samples) that employed 576

Based on the simple view of reading (SVR), we investigated factors associated with reading comprehension in Second Language (L2) minority children learning a highly consistent orthography through a network analysis. Bilingual and monolingual children participated in the research. Consistent with prior findings, reading speed supported reading comprehension for L1 learners, whereas, for L2 learners

Simultaneous interpreting (SI) is an intensive multitasking activity that requires coordination of a variety of linguistic and cognitive control mechanisms. Research has shown that interpreters perform better in tasks that require domain-general executive functions (EF), but the question remains whether such cognitive alternation is a result of interpreting experience or it reflects a selection bias

We conducted a detailed linguistic analysis of Oral Proficiency Interviews (OPIs) from older Spanish-English bilinguals (n = 28) to determine which cognitive, linguistic, and demographic factors predict proficiency. In the dominant language, older age was associated with lower proficiency scores, but aging effects were not significant after accounting for cognitive functioning scores. In the nondominant

As the field of heritage language acquisition expands, there is a need for proficiency to compare speakers across groups and studies. Elicited imitation tasks (EITs) are efficient cost-effective tasks with a long tradition in proficiency assessment of second language (L2) learners, first language children, and adults. However, little research has investigated their use with heritage speakers (HSs)

Previous research has investigated the effect of planning time (PT) on L2 learners’ production regarding fluency, complexity, and accuracy, but its influence at the discourse level has been overlooked. Thus, this study explores the influence of PT on learners’ written performance regarding anaphora resolution (AR) and their pragmatically (in)felicitous choices of referring expressions (REs) in discourse

This response to the commentaries on our conceptual review article on structural complexity and learning difficulty in second language acquisition (SLA) clarifies the scope and objectives of our framework, the challenges of defining and measuring complexity and difficulty, and the broader relevance of our proposal for both empirical research and theory building in SLA, including its relationships to