This article presents a qualitative study demonstrating how teachers who are non-native speakers (NNS) of the target language and who have learned the target language in a similar environment as their students can use their past learning experiences as pedagogical tools in their classes. An analysis of transcripts from classrooms with NNS and…

The current research investigated the acquisition of the copula "be" in Present Simple Tense (PST) in English by native speakers of Russian. The aim of the study was to determine whether or not Russian students with different levels of English proficiency would encounter any problems while using the copula "be" in PST in English. The study also…

Native speakers show systematic variation in a range of linguistic domains as a function of a variety of sociolinguistic variables. This article addresses native language variation in the context of multicompetence, i.e. knowledge of two languages in one mind (Cook, 1991). Descriptions of motion were elicited from functionally monolingual and…

This paper seeks to provide insights into the local context of ICLHE (Integrating Content and Language in Higher Education) in Italy. Its principal aim is descriptive although it also discusses theoretical models since it seeks to establish the extent to which Focus on Form (FonF) is present in ICLHE lectures. By means of observations, recordings…

The article discusses the potential of combining learner corpus research with experimental studies in order to fine-tune the understanding of learner language development. It illustrates the complementarity of the two methodological approaches with data from an ongoing study of the acquisition of the English tense and aspect system by French…

As an initial step toward understanding which features of academic language make science-based expository text difficult for students with different English language proficiency (ELP) designations, this study investigated fifth-grade students' thoughts on text difficulty, their knowledge of the features of academic language, and the…

The study examined heritage speaker grammars and to what extent they diverge with respect to grammatical gender from adult L2 learners. Results from a preference task involving code-mixed Determiner Phrases (DPs) and code-mixed copula constructions show a difference between these two types of operations. Heritage speakers patterned with the…

Sixty-five Japanese learners of English participated in the current study, which investigated the acquisitional value of form-focused instruction (FFI) with and without corrective feedback (CF) on learners' pronunciation development. All students received a 4-hr FFI treatment designed to encourage them to notice and practice the target feature of…

The present study was conducted to investigate the relationship between proactive and reactive Focus on Form (FonF) and gestures. Two English classes in a public high school in Japan taught by a native speaker of English were observed and videotaped for 96 min and analyzed. Overall, 64 proactive FonF and 43 reactive FonF were provided. Among them,…

This study aimed to investigate the characteristics and developmental phenomena apparent in Japanese learners of English with their raters' perspectives in terms of fluency which has been recognized as a major factor in judging non-native speakers' proficiency. The following temporal indices demonstrated strong relationships with the raters'…

Second language acquisition studies can contribute to the body of research on the influence of language on thought by examining cognitive change as a result of second language learning. We conducted a longitudinal study that examined how the acquisition of Spanish grammatical gender influences categorization in native English-speaking adults. We…

This study examines the effect of proficiency and similarity between the first and the second language on grammatical gender processing in L2. In three experiments, we manipulated gender agreement violations within the determiner phrase (DP), between the determiner and the noun (Experiment 1), the postposed adjective and the noun (Experiment 2)…

This special issue of the "Heritage Language Journal", guest edited by Silvina Montrul, unites four papers on different aspects of heritage Spanish speakers' linguistic abilities. In this commentary, we reexamine these important contributions with an eye toward implications for instruction and toward general trends for the field. In particular, we…

Whereas the speech act of refusal is universal across language, the politeness value and the types of linguistic forms used to perform it vary across language and culture. The majority of the comparative pragmatic research findings were derived from one single source of data (i.e., either production data or perception data). Few attempts have been…

While normal child language acquisition results in complete productive and comprehension abilities at a relatively young age, adult language acquisition is more belabored and often results in linguistic abilities that differ from those of native speakers in terms of both productive and comprehension abilities. A major line of research in language…