As post-secondary institutions assume more responsibility for the language abilities of their graduates, more attention is being paid to post-admission language support to enhance student success. Previous research has indicated that a post-admission language diagnostic assessment procedure, when coupled with language support services, can be an…

There are few published estimates of vocabulary sizes amongst students in tertiary education. Research does not offer estimates of the vocabulary size tertiary students might be expected to possess, though estimates exist for K-12 education, some EFL contexts, and the general population. Such research is important. For reading comprehension during…

Language proficiency exams have been used since the development of bilingual education. The purpose of the following case study is to demonstrate how the English and Spanish proficiency exams given to a child for admission into a dual language (Spanish-English) program framed a child in a deficit view and missed the proficiency the child had…

Translation, an ancient activity, has only been acknowledged as an independent discipline since the 1970s. Translation Studies was introduced as a program in Turkish higher education in the 1980s, with English translation and interpreting programs being the first to emerge. It was not until 2011 that the first program for training Arabic…

This study investigates the acoustic realizations of English phonemic contrasts by Korean EFL learners, comparing their productions with those of native English speakers. Focusing on the segmentally correct production, the research aims to determine if Korean learners' acoustic properties align with those of native speakers, influenced by second…

Adult learners acquire second language (L2) allophones with experience. We examine two mechanisms which may support the acquisition of allophonic variants in second language acquisition. One of the mechanisms is based on the distribution of phones with respect to their phonological context (i.e. phonological distribution). The other is based on…

We evaluated external and internal sources of variation in second language (L2) and native language (L1) proficiency among college students. One hundred and twelve native-English L2 learners completed measures of L1 and L2 speaking proficiency, working memory, and cognitive control and provided self-ratings of language exposure and use. When…

The current study examined the phonolexical processing of Mandarin segments and tones by English speakers at different Mandarin proficiency levels. Eleven English speakers naive to Mandarin, 15 intermediate and 9 advanced second language (L2) learners participated in a word-learning experiment. After learning the sound and meaning of 16 Mandarin…

Some words have more than one translation across languages. Such translation-ambiguous words are harder to learn, recognize, and produce for individuals across the language learning spectrum. Past research demonstrates that learning both translations of translation-ambiguous words on consecutive trials confers an accuracy advantage relative to…

This study investigates the role of emotional linguistic input in learning novel words with abstract and concrete denotations. It is widely accepted that concrete words are processed more easily than abstract ones. Several theories of vocabulary acquisition additionally propose a critical role of sensorimotor and emotional information during novel…

Event concepts of common verbs (e.g. "eat," "sleep") can be broadly shared across languages, but a given language's rules for subcategorization are largely arbitrary and vary substantially across languages. When subcategorization information does not match between first language (L1) and second language (L2), how does this…

Metaphors are well-known tools for teaching statistics to novices. However, educators might overlook metaphor theoretical developments that offer nuanced and testable perspectives on their pedagogical applications. This article introduces the notion of metaphor types--"correspondence" (CO) and "class inclusion" (CI)--as…

Unlike alphabetic languages, Chinese text marks no word demarcation. Previous research inserted word-demarcating spaces into Chinese text but found inconsistent effects on reading efficiency. To address the potential trade-off effects of the additional length caused by inserted spaces, this study introduces color-and-font formatting as a word…

The current study explores the effects of processing demands and proficiency on second language (L2) learners' acceptability judgment of wh-island sentences. A total of 65 adult Korean learners of English and ten native speakers (NSs) of English participated in an experiment that combined self-paced reading and acceptability judgment. They were…

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of integrated ACT Prep course on students' English component of the ACT assessment and English III TN Ready assessment with respect to examining students' self-efficacy for the English component of the English component of the ACT assessment. Specifically, this study will examine the effects…