The present study challenges the validity of elicited imitation (EI) as a measure for implicit knowledge, investigating to what extent online error detection and subsequent sentence repetition draw on implicit knowledge. To assess online detection during listening, a word monitoring component was built into an EI task. Advanced-level Japanese L2…

Because there has been little research on focus on form during the post-task phase in task-based language teaching, this experimental study investigates the effects of task repetition after having directed learners' attention to form during the main task. The study comprises two interventions, where each consisted of a task with a focus on a…

The field of Instructed Second Language Acquisition (ISLA) has expressed interest in pursuing a research agenda that expands the current heritage language (HL) strand of research to investigate how this heterogeneous population re-learns their family language, and how this experience differs from that of second language (L2) learners. This…

Background: The awareness of the formal structure of language has been widely studied in the literature but less in a bilingualism context. Even less with second-language learners (SLL) who are acquiring their second language (L2) and are not considered as bilinguals. Aims: This study aimed at providing an investigation of young SLL's skills in…

This paper considers the issue raised in 2008 by Gillian Brown in her article "Selective listening" regarding whether nouns are "privileged" in memory over verbs during listening tasks, and whether attention to nouns, at least in the early stages of L2 learning, is a desirable strategy to be taught to learners, as Brown…

This study investigated the performance of school age Greek-speaking children with SLI on verbal short-term memory (VSTM) and Subject-Verb (S-V) agreement in comparison to chronological age controls and younger typically developing children. VSTM abilities were assessed by means of a non-word repetition task (NRT) and an elicited production task,…

Children's spoken nonmainstream American English (NMAE) dialect use and their knowledge about phonological representations of word pronunciations were assessed in a sample of 105 children in kindergarten through second grade. Children were given expressive and receptive tasks with dialect-sensitive stimuli. Students who produced many NMAE…

There is an increasing need for quality assurance in higher education, given the changes taking place around the world (Biggs & Tang, 2011). Yet another challenge for educators is to find ways to address this in a systematic way. This study presents a systematic endeavor towards this aim in an English language teaching (ELT) department in a…

Research shows that computer-generated corrective feedback can promote second language development, but there is no consensus about which type is the most effective. The scale is tipped in favor of more explicit feedback that provides metalinguistic explanations, but counterevidence indicates that minimally explicit feedback of the…

Poor comprehenders have intact word-reading skills but struggle specifically with understanding what they read. We investigated whether two metalinguistic skills, morphological and syntactic awareness, are specifically related to poor reading comprehension by including separate and combined measures of each. We identified poor comprehenders…

To be effective second or additional language (L2) listeners, learners should be aware of typical processes in connected L2 speech (e.g. linking). This longitudinal study explored how learners' developing ability to perceive connected L2 speech was related to the quality of their language awareness. Thirty-two learners of L2 French at a university…

The present studies revealed different factors associated with the reported advantages found in fully bilingual children for metalinguistic awareness and executive control. Participants were 100 children in Study 1 and 80 children in Study 2 in the process of becoming bilingual by attending immersion programs. In both studies, "level of…

This study explores L2 learners' awareness of meaning of L2 conventional expressions and the effect of form-meaning associations on the use of the expressions in L2 pragmatics. Definitions and examples were elicited through an aural Vocabulary Knowledge Scale modified for expressions. Elicited definitions were used to explore the meanings that…

"Metasyntactic Ability" (MSA) refers to the conscious reflection about syntactic aspects of language and the deliberate control of these aspects (Gombert, 1992). It appears from previous studies that heritage-language learners tend to demonstrate lower MSA than their monolingual counterparts (Lesaux & Siegel, 2003). In the present study, we…

Negation is a unique and fascinating property of human language which has been given extensive theoretical and typological treatment. One categorization divides negation use into metalinguistic negation and descriptive negation (Horn, 1985). Descriptive negation (DN) is the truth-functional semantic operator which has received the most attention…