In two visual-world eye-tracking experiments, we explore the extent to which conflicting first-language (L1) based grammatical parses influence second-language (L2) learners' on-line and off-line interpretation of sentences in the L2. We used cross-linguistic structural priming to potentially boost competition from the L1 grammar during the…

The study examined the impact of a first language's summarizing skill and second language vocabulary size on summary performances in a second language. A total of 40 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners from a Japanese university with a mixed level of English language proficiency were asked to write a summary in English (i.e., their…

Many overseas students in Higher Education in the UK struggle to understand the compulsory texts for their course, and obtain lower scores for their modules than their monolingual peers. While the existence of this achievement gap is well established in the literature, little is known about the ways in which overseas students in HE with limited…

The present study investigated the association between vocabulary size and depth of Iranian EFL learners at different language proficiency levels. Additionally, the extent that this relationship could be different for low-and high-word-frequency bands was probed. In so doing, the Word Associates Test (WAT), the Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT), the…

Bilingual children's dominance can predict a variety of language and cognitive outcomes. The purpose of this study was to test the validity of parents' classifications of 3- to 6-year-old bilingual children's dominance against relative receptive vocabulary scores. In Study 1, the parents' classifications of Mandarin-English bilingual children's…

The purpose of this study is to examine whether a difference exists in TOEIC Bridge® Institutional Program scores between Japanese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students at a technical college who did extensive reading (ER) for one year and those who did ER for two years. Furthermore, by dividing the students who experienced ER for two years…

This U.S. study evaluated the effects of a reading intervention for emergent bilingual students with significant reading difficulties in Grades 6 and 7 within a multisite randomized controlled trial. Emergent bilinguals were randomized to a researcher-provided intervention (n = 171) or business-as-usual comparison condition (n = 169). Results on a…

While the use of machine translation (MT) in the classroom has been explored from various perspectives, the relationship between language proficiency and MT use regarding learners' behaviors and beliefs remains unclear in the research literature. This study focused on four Japanese learners with various language proficiencies from a fourth-year…

Environmental sources of variance in the Italian vocabulary and reading skills of bilingual primary school children from immigrant families (or language minority bilingual children (LMBC)) in Italy were investigated, and the LMBC's skill levels were compared to those of their monolingual classmates. A total of 140 children from the first, third,…

Purpose: This study investigated the reading profiles of middle school Spanish-speaking emergent bilinguals (EBs) with significantly below grade level reading comprehension and whether these profiles varied in their reading comprehension performance over time. Method: Latent profile analyses were used to classify Grade 6 and 7 Hispanic EBs (n =…

This study examines the influence of pre-departure proficiency on English as a second language (L2) oral development after a semester studying abroad in two distinct learning contexts. The data analysed were collected from tertiary level students (N = 33) who undertook an ERASMUS exchange semester in a European country where English was either the…

In the realm of language proficiency assessments, the domain description inference and the extrapolation inference are key components of a validity argument. Biber et al.'s description of the lexicogrammatical features of the spoken and written registers in the T2K-SWAL corpus has served as support for the TOEFL iBT test's domain description and…

Speech fluency has been extensively researched as a core construct for second language (L2) speaking assessment. Despite the broad consensus on its multifaceted nature, few researchers have empirically explored the dimensionality of this construct. Operationalizations of fluency vary across research and practice, using both holistic and…

In the present study, we compared the extent to which linguistic comprehension (vocabulary and listening comprehension) and word reading explain reading comprehension differentially for English learners (ELs) and non-ELs with reading difficulties. We also investigated whether different mechanisms of reading comprehension failure exist for each…

Bilinguals recognize words with shared morphology and phonology cross-linguistically (i.e., cognates) faster than words that do not have these characteristics. Moreover, higher phonological overlap in cognates enhances the effects, which suggests that phonology eases word recognition. However, it is currently unclear whether words compete purely…