This research investigated the impact of processing instruction (PI) on the acquisition of the English third-person singular present tense by Chinese English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) learners and whether this effect would extend to the acquisition of other language components. This study featured the pretest-immediate-posttest design and…

Extensive research has demonstrated the impact of working memory (WM) on first language (L1) reading comprehension across age groups (Peng et al., 2018), and on foreign language (FL) reading comprehension of adults and older adolescents (Linck et al., 2014). Comparatively little is known about the effect of WM on young FL readers' comprehension,…

Theories of multilingual language learning often assume that previous language learning experiences in at least two languages provide advantages for additional language learning. Other research emphasises the importance of general cognitive abilities as predictors of language learning. We test whether a set of predictions based on a multilingual…

Home language (HL) effects on academic language literacy have been extensively discussed. However, previous research has mostly focused on Indo--European languages. This study extends the literature by using data (n = 17,600) collected in a diversified language area: Guangxi, China. We examined the effects of four HLs and four socioeconomic…

Several types of help options have been incorporated into reading and listening comprehension activities to aid second language (L2) vocabulary acquisition. Textbook authors, teachers, and sometimes even students may pick and choose which help options they wish to use. In this paper, I investigate the effects of two help options in a multimedia…