A hallmark of Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is difficulties with social communication, and some learners with ASD experience additional deficits in expressive and/or receptive language that impair their ability to interact with others. However, a strength observed in many learners with ASD is responding to visual cues and structure. The use of…

A body of studies, which are mostly based on parental reports, have documented gender differences in early language proficiency, and girls tend to outperform boys in both language production and language comprehension. In this study, staff in Norwegian Early Childhood Education and Care institutions observed language comprehension, word…

Azerbaijani and Turkish are two closely-related languages from Oguz branch of Turkic languages, which are said to be mutually intelligible. Regarding this background, we designed an experiment within the framework of receptive multilingualism to investigate the role of linguistic factors in intelligibility of the Turkish language to Iranian…

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…

In this thesis, I present three related papers that collectively investigate the instructional supports on screen and in the media viewing context that influenced English and heritage language vocabulary knowledge in DLLs. In study 1, I examine how specific pedagogical approaches used in educational media might benefit DLLs. In study 2, I…

Young people from areas of socioeconomic disadvantage (SED) are more likely to present with language difficulties, particularly vocabulary difficulties. Studies have shown the effectiveness of vocabulary interventions for children with language impairment but not for adolescents from areas of SED. This article aims to establish the effectiveness…

Needs analysis can be a vital asset for teachers of English for specific purposes (ESP) to identify their learners' key requirements or needs and determine the areas in which they are lacking skills. Against this background, this study was undertaken during the academic year 2015-16 to define the English language needs of engineering students…

Four-year-old (n = 20) and five-year-old (n = 22) bilingual children were tested twice in six months on Armenian (minority language) and English (majority language) picture identification and picture naming tasks to examine receptive and expressive vocabulary growth in both languages. Parental education, Armenian/English language exposure, and…

This study explores the ability of Jordanian learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) to comprehend metaphorical expressions in English and investigates whether the use of their first language (L1) conceptual and linguistic knowledge may facilitate the comprehension of these expressions. For this purpose, the study adopts a contrastive…

This article presents a case study which aims at analyzing the influence that the first language has on the learning of a foreign language. This research was conducted in an ESL classroom from a Language Center in England and was carried out with a Saudi Arabian student during a two-month period. In order to conduct this research, theoretical…

In recent years, a number of studies have attempted to assess the English vocabulary knowledge of high-school students and undergraduate university students in contexts where English is a foreign language (EFL). The present paper explores the lexical development of Arab undergraduates at a Saudi University where EFL is the medium of instruction.…

In this paper the incidental language acquisition of 11-year-old Flemish children (n = 30) who have not received any formal English instruction is investigated. The study looks into children's English proficiency and the learner characteristics that can be associated with it. In order to measure the children's English proficiency, a receptive…

This article reports on a quasi-experimental study investigating the effectiveness of two different teaching approaches, explicit teaching and explicit teaching combined with textual and aural input enhancement used to teach lexical items to elementary level learners of Turkish in a higher education context. Forty participants were divided into…

A critical skill in emergent writing is the developing ability to take the perspective of different readers; however, the precursors of this skill have not yet been identified. In this longitudinal study, 105 children (90 after attrition) were tested at 3 time points: pre-kindergarten (3-4 years old, n = 105), kindergarten (5 years old, n = 97),…

This paper aims to understand the relationship between context and agency in the context of a South Korean high school teacher's English classroom pedagogy. This was explored through two semi-structured interviews with the teacher, which was transcribed and analyzed using the principles of grounded theory in order to obtain a bottom-up,…