In a context in which opportunities for oral interaction are limited (English as a foreign language courses at a Saudi tertiary institution), we carried out an action research project evaluating the introduction of computer-mediated spoken language tasks with a group of intermediate learners. Although the students were confronted with multiple…

There remains a persistent achievement gap among English learners (ELs) and their English-speaking peers. A typical, native English speaker begins schooling with years of oral language experience in the language of instruction, which provides the required precursors necessary for reading acquisition. The latest research indicates for many ELs,…

The purpose of this study was to explore the development of students' engagement in oral interactions using conversation analysis (CA, hereafter) tools. A qualitative design of a CA approach was used to understand the role of conversation analysis. Here, CA was used both as a data gathering tool and an analysis technique. Oral tasks were provided…

This meta-analytic review demonstrates that language interventions can improve oral language in children with neurodevelopmental disorders. We assessed interventions that target language skills in children with neurodevelopmental disorders. The interventions had to use techniques ranging from explicit and structured activities (explicit…

Purpose: This study investigated the extent to which comprehension monitoring in children's first and second language predicts reading comprehension. Method: Children's ability to detect inconsistencies in orally presented stories was measured by response to a judgment question about whether the story made sense and by the identification of the…

Though considerable professional discussion has focused on the integration of K-16 curricula, the level of oral proficiency with which students "enter" college and how that the entry level relates to college programs remains untested. The entry landscape is varied, complexified by the diverse curricula that students experience, in…

Two assumptions of speaking proficiency tests are that the speech produced is spontaneous and the the scores on those tests predict what examinees can do in real-world communicative situations. Therefore, when examinees memorize scripts for their oral responses, the validity of the score interpretation is threatened. While the American Council on…

This article discusses the dynamic nature of childhood bilingualism by analyzing oral speech from returnee heritage speakers (HSs) of Portuguese, who grew up in Germany, but moved to Portugal in childhood/adolescence. The first dataset from 14 speakers showed that the length of exposure to German predicted the rate of (in)accurate production of…

Linguists have found that certain dynamics of conversation are consistent across languages worldwide, and these dynamics can affect the classroom discussions that teachers use to assess student understanding and make instructional decisions. Carrie Holmberg and Jamaal Muwwakkil discuss how conversational pauses, for example, might lead questioners…

We investigated the acquisition of Hindi split ergativity (zero or "-ne" marking) and Hindi differential object marking (DOM; zero or "-ko" marking) by L1 speakers of Dutch. Both grammatical phenomena are conditioned by multiple syntactic and semantic features. On a descriptive level, the study aims to examine when and how…

The current study examines the bilingual language development of twelve young children. We focus on the use of Spanish as a heritage language among the children while they learn English in an English-majority environment. Data was collected in English and Spanish four times over the first two years of formal schooling. The study focuses on oral…

Languages differ in their realization of the subject argument: non-null-subject languages, like English, require subjects to be phonologically overt; rather, null-subject languages, like Greek, allow the subject to be overt or null. This cross-linguistic difference can lead to the transfer of grammatical properties across languages during…

The quality of feedback interactions, when young pupils write, influences their learning processes. Still, teachers tend to use feedback that provides little information to enhance pupils' understanding and learning regarding their literacy skills. More knowledge about feedback interactions for young pupils as they write is needed. Thus, we wanted…

The shift of focus from a cognitive to social view has drawn the attention of second language assessment researchers to delve into interactional competence as an intriguing topic in paired oral tests. To fill the gap on how interactional patterns compare across L1 and L2 interactions this study was specifically set to explore and compare 45 paired…

orInverse relations, or "trade-off effects," are a common outcome of interlanguage development: a learner may increase performance in one linguistic domain while simultaneously decreasing performance in another. In this study, we investigate the relationships between one aspect of fluency (pause usage) and two aspects of syntactic…