Second languages (L2s) are often learned through spoken and written input, and L2 orthographic forms (spellings) can lead to non-native-like pronunciation. The present study investigated whether orthography can lead experienced learners of English[subscript L2] to make a phonological contrast in their speech production that does not exist in…

TLC Pack stands for Teaching Languages to Caregivers and is a course designed to support migrants working or hoping to work in the caregiving sector. The TLC Pack resources range from A2 to B2 level of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), and will be made available online in the six project languages: Dutch, English,…

Drawing on theories of family language policy and literacy environment, this inquiry explores and describes how family language policy is managed through literacy resources and literacy related activities in transnational families in the UK. A total of 66 families, each with at least one child between the age of 2 and 8, participated in this…

A remarkable example of Spanish-Italian contact is the Spanish variety spoken in Buenos Aires (Porteño), which is said to be prosodically "Italianized" due to migration-induced contact. The change in Porteño prosody has been interpreted as a result of transfer from the first language (L1) that occurred when Italian immigrants learned…

This study explores whether chat users are able to extend prior, apparently completed posts in the dyadic online text chat context. Dyadic text chat has a unique turn-taking system, and most chat softwares do not permit users to monitor one another's written messages-in-progress. This is likely to impact on their use of online extensions as an…

This study analyses the case of a gifted child (9;6 year) with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who had a particularly high verbal IQ (146) and a specific cognitive, linguistic, and metalinguistic profile. A description of some salient behavioral characteristics of the child is provided. A metalinguistic ability test assessing metagrammatical,…

This paper discusses the integration and effectiveness of blended learning for the development and assessment of listening skills in a second language. The development of oral abilities (listening and speaking) is one of the most challenging and neglected aspects of second language learning (Vandergrift & Goh 2012, Graham & Santos 2015).…

This article describes a small in-class study which sought to explore the effectiveness (or not) of using the emerging bilingual skills of the students as a teaching and learning tool in a geography through English Content-Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) classroom in Northern Italy. In particular, the study sought to examine whether and to…

This study intends the validation of an instructional design on intercultural communicative competence (ICC) in the beginning levels of German, French, Italian, Portuguese, and English in the Modern Languages program at EAN University in Colombia. The design constituents: language integration, oral production, fieldwork activities, and a…

Our native tongue influences the way we perceive other languages. But does it also determine the way we perceive nonlinguistic sounds? The authors investigated how speakers of Italian, Turkish, and Persian group sequences of syllables, tones, or visual shapes alternating in either frequency or duration. We found strong native listening effects…

This paper looks back at an academic-led language field trip project, now in its third year, involving ab-initio students of Italian at the University of Southampton. It considers the role of academic-led field trips in Modern Languages (ML) and it explores the underlying pedagogical approaches that were adopted to enhance students' engagement,…

This case study describes the "Bologna-München" Tandem, a cross-border collaboration which began in 2011. The aim of the collaboration is to give students studying Italian at the Ludwig- Maximilians-University in Munich and students studying German at the University of Bologna the opportunity to experience interculturality through…

Italian has regular spelling-sound correspondences; however, assignment of lexical stress is unpredictable. Sensitivity to stress neighborhood information was investigated by constructing three types of three-syllabic nonwords: nonwords with word-endings characterized by a strong neighborhood of dominant stress words (dominant), nonwords with…

The present study focuses on the characteristics of parental child-directed communication and its relationship with child language development. For this purpose, thirty-six toddlers (18 males and 18 females) and their parents were observed in a laboratory during triadic free play at ages 1;3 and 1;9. The characteristics of the maternal and…

This study examined Italian 7- to 9-year-olds' understanding of the connective "but" when used to relate two events in sentences embedded in short stories. Performance was largely accounted for by the cognitive complexity of the sentence that included the connective and the salience of its meaning (confirmed in a second study with…