Two experiments with one hundred and fourteen 3- to 5-year-old children examined whether children understand that a printed word represents a specific spoken word and that it differs in this way from a drawing. When an experimenter read a word to children and then a puppet used a different but related label for it, such as "dog" for the…

To learn to produce speech, infants must effectively monitor and assess their own speech output. Yet very little is known about how infants perceive speech produced by an infant, which has higher voice pitch and formant frequencies compared to adult or child speech. Here, we tested whether pre-babbling infants (at 4-6 months) prefer listening to…

The research study intends to determine the effectiveness of authentic digital storytelling as an alternative strategy to improve speaking in EFL classes at the university level. The research follows a quantitative paradigm, and a survey was first administered to capture participants' perceptions of the everyday speaking activities employed in…

The sentences in texts are far more complex and diverse than those that children commonly encounter in oral language. This raises interesting questions as to whether the understanding of some sentence types might be more important than others in children's reading comprehension. Accordingly, we examined the relation between children's reading…

Over several decades, numerous approaches applied to EFL have resulted in theories and reasonings to teach and learn English. Although Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is the most commonly used path nowadays, it has only resulted in minimal development of university learners' oral skills; i.e., English-beginner-level students usually attain…

This article presents a review of research that has investigated ways of measuring implicit and explicit knowledge of a second language (L2), focusing on grammar. It begins by defining implicit and explicit knowledge in terms of a distinguishing set of criteria. Two ways of investigating implicit knowledge are discussed -- through experimental…

This systematic review presents a synthesis of evidence regarding the effectiveness of language and literacy interventions targeting children with EAL. It updates the systematic review by Murphy and Unthiah [2015. A systematic review of intervention research examining English language and literacy development in children with English as an…

This study investigates whether gesture-enhanced recasts lead to better production of the English regular past tense. Fifty-nine low-intermediate ESL students at a US university took part in communicative activities in class, during which they received, respectively, no feedback, verbal recasts, or gesture-enhanced recasts, the latter being a…

Background: Reading comprehension is a complex process influenced by many factors. However, the abilities that are known to influence reading comprehension may not contribute equally for children with different levels of oral language. Aims: Here we examined the relationship of two factors known to influence reading comprehension (morphology and…

Empirical research shows that language anxiety has a detrimental effect on foreign language learning and its use. Several studies suggest that anxiety related to mastering and using foreign languages is skill-specific. This study examined pronunciation anxiety and attempted to determine its significant correlates. The included factors ranged from…

We conducted a research synthesis to examine the impact of cooperative, collaborative, and peer-tutoring strategies on elementary English learners' (EL) reading and oral proficiencies in studies from the United States. Seven studies were included in the analysis and fully examined regarding the characteristics of sample, intervention, design, and…

Helping second language (L2) learners to enhance their oral skills is vitally important, and pedagogical approaches are often seen as challenging when offering learners chances to successfully develop them. This article shares the experiences of a class of final-year high-school Italian learners (n =10) who learned English using theatre plays both…

The present study examined whether oral interactive (pair) rehearsals and individual rehearsals promote second language (L2) learners' communication ability. The participants were 60 first-year students from two required English classes at a national university in Japan. One class was designated as 'the compulsory rehearsal' group (CR, n=28); the…

Introduction: At the College of Languages and Translation (COLT), the students take four speaking courses in the first four semesters of college. In each course, they take two interim tests and a final exam. Aims: The study aims to find out which speaking assessment method EFL students and instructors at COLT prefer: Face to face, or lab testing,…

Oral narrative assessments are important for diagnosis of language disorders in school-age children so scoring needs to be reliable and consistent. This study explored the impact of training on the variability of story grammar scores in children's oral narrative assessments scored by multiple raters. Fifty-one speech pathologists and 19 final-year…