In order to inform English foreign language (EFL) diagnostic assessment of literacy, this study examined the extent to which 175 first-language Hebrew-speaking EFL young learners from fifth to tenth grade exhibited differences in single-letter grapheme recognition, sub-word, and word reading, and rapid automatized naming (RAN) of letters and…

This paper adopts an ethnomethodological, conversation analytic approach to analyze the social organization of the instruction-giving sequences that were accomplished by a teacher of Italian as a foreign language during the last phase of a writing task conducted in pairs. Specifically, the paper explores the linguistic, prosodic and embodied…

We explored the proposal that overt repetition of verbal information improves the acquisition of a native accent in a second language. Mandarin-speaking Chinese learners of English were recorded while repeating and reading out English sentences before and after one of three treatments: (a) repeating native English sentences subvocally,…

Purpose: This study presents the results of acoustic and kinematic analyses of word-initial semivowels (/[voiced alveolar approximant], l, w/) produced by second-language (L2) speakers of English whose native language is Korean. In addition, the relationship of acoustic and kinematic measures to the ratings of foreign accent was examined by…

This study examined the difference in adults' pronunciation performance with peer feedback and individual practice when using an automatic speech recognition (ASR) system. The same ASR software was used in both the comparison (n = 31) and the experimental group (n = 33) for 12 weeks. The participants were working adults in Taiwan. During the…

Nawat, the highly endangered indigenous language of El Salvador, is undergoing a revitalization process. This dissertation, conceived within this context, focuses on the second-language (L2) acquisition of features of Nawat pronunciation by learners who have Salvadoran Spanish as their first language (L1). Specifically, I assess the acquisition of…

This study investigated the oral reading strategy use of 51 first-grade readers in a Chinese Dual-Language Bilingual Education (DLBE) programme. It attempted to answer the following research questions: (1) What reading strategies do first-grade Mandarin Chinese DLBE learners employ to decode Chinese text during oral reading? (2) Do the first-grade…

The current study longitudinally examined a crucial individual difference variable -- i.e. awareness (operationalized as explicit attention and articulatory knowledge) -- in adult second language (L2) speech learning in the context of 40 Japanese learners' English /[alveolar approximant]/ pronunciation development in an EFL classroom. The…

The present study investigates whether training second language pronunciation with tactile cues facilitates the production of non-native sounds involving accessible articulatory features. In a between-subjects experiment with a pretest-training-posttest design, 50 Turkish learners of English received audiovisual training on a set of target words…

Reading fluency is a skill, which is closely linked to reading comprehension. Learners' struggle with fluency in reading can be a significant hurdle to proficiency in their overall reading comprehension and competency. This paper, based on the thematic analysis approach, presents some theoretically pedagogical strategies discovered for developing…

One of the challenges in teaching a foreign language is: finding appropriate ways to enable students to develop their reading fluency and comprehension. Repeated reading and listening-while-reading are two significant strategies that enhance students' fluency and comprehension. This study aimed to develop fluency and comprehension of EFL college…

This study explores collaborative and individual computer-assisted prosody training (CAPT) through a quasi-experimental design. Eighteen adult Algerian EFL learners were recruited and randomly assigned into a control group receiving no treatment and two experimental groups, a collaborative CAPT group where the participants practiced in pairs, and…

The accurate identification of likely segmental pronunciation errors produced by nonnative speakers of English is a longstanding goal in pronunciation teaching. Most lists of pronunciation errors for speakers of a particular first language (L1) are based on the experience of expert linguists or teachers of English as a second language (ESL) and…

This study focuses on the development of L2 prosody and, in particular, whether different aspects can affect each other. Finnish-speaking learners of Swedish took part in a pronunciation and oral skills course and were recorded for various speaking tasks before and after the experimental intervention. Read-aloud declarative sentences (statements)…

This study intends to examine the reading process in Chinese of two young heritage language learners through the use of retrospective miscue analysis (RMA). Retrospective miscue analysis involves both the author and the reader in reflectively discussing the reader's oral reading miscues--responses that differ from the actual text. This study…