While the use of intelligent personal assistants (IPAs) has exploded in recent years, little is known about their use to promote English as a foreign language (EFL) development. Thus, this study addresses this gap in the literature by examining the in-class use of the IPA, Alexa, among second language (L2) English students to support improvements…

Vocabulary's relationship to reading proficiency is frequently cited as a justification for the assessment of L2 written receptive vocabulary knowledge. However, to date, there has been relatively little research regarding which modalities of vocabulary knowledge have the strongest correlations to reading proficiency, and observed differences have…

This paper investigates the effect of using L1 translations versus L2 definitions on the learning and testing of L2 vocabulary recognition knowledge. For this study, 48 Japanese L2 learners of English studied 200 lexical items from the academic word list (AWL) over a 10-week period. To support their learning, the participants were provided with…

This study investigated the relationship between vocabulary knowledge (written and aural receptive vocabulary size and self-rating of vocabulary knowledge) and self-perceptions of four language skills (reading, listening, writing, speaking) targeting undergraduate students in English-medium instruction (EMI) courses in Japan. The students'…

Several researchers have compared the efficacy of digital flashcards (DFs) versus paper flashcards (PFs) to improve L2 vocabulary and have concluded that using DFs is more effective (Azabdaftari & Mozaheb, 2012; Basoglu & Akdemir, 2010; Kiliçkaya & Krajka, 2010). However, these studies did not utilize vocabulary learning strategies…

The purposes of this study are (1) to longitudinally measure the receptive vocabulary size (VS) of Japanese EFL senior high school learners; (2) to investigate how the learners develop their VS; and (3) to describe the longitudinal developmental patterns of VS of each learner during their three years of high school. Kasahara's (2005) VS tests, a…

This first Japanese twin study of early literacy development investigated the extent to which genetic and environmental factors influence individual differences in prereading skills in 238 pairs of twins at 42 months of age. Twin pairs were individually tested on measures of phonological awareness, "kana" letter name/sound knowledge,…

This study aimed to clarify factors related to difficulties in responding to "yes/no" questions (Y/N-Qs) among 52 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), 41 boys and 11 girls aged between 3:5-16:0 years. Participants completed the Tanaka-Binet Intelligence Scale V, the Picture Vocabulary Test: Revised (PVT-R), and the Pervasive…

The primary purpose of this study was to provide preliminary validity evidence for a 140-item form of the Vocabulary Size Test, which is designed to measure written receptive knowledge of the first 14,000 words of English. Nineteen native speakers of English and 178 native speakers of Japanese participated in the study. Analyses based on the Rasch…

This article examines the effects of synonymy (i.e., learning words with and without high-frequency synonyms that were known to the learners) on word knowledge in a study of 84 Japanese students learning English. It employed 10 tests measuring 5 aspects of word knowledge (orthography, paradigmatic association, syntagmatic association, meaning and…

English-as-a-Second-Language students in Japan were tested at the beginning and the end of the school year to examine changes in word associations and grammatical suffix knowledge. Results showed an average vocabulary gain of 330 words, a poor knowledge of the allowable suffixes for the verbs learned, and 19 to 25 percentage points more receptive…