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Over the past decades, there have been a number of studies investigating the vocabulary strategies used by learners of Indo-European languages, especially English. However, studies of the strategies used by learners of non-Indo-European languages are rare. This classroom-based case study investigates the vocabulary learning strategies used by nine learners of Chinese as a foreign language and tests a taxonomy, based on Long's (1996) interaction hypothesis, for classifying strategies that may facilitate our understanding of strategies and their role within second language acquisition. (Contains 1 note and 2 tables.)

An editorial is presented on 40th anniversary issue of Language Testing. Topics include bridging educational measurement, social and cognitive psychology, and applied linguistics; and language test design and scale construction (rubrics) expecting to see tremendous growth in the need for expertise in young-child second language (L2) assessment methodology.

Objective: The Fagan Test of Infant Intelligence (FTII) uses longer gaze length for unfamiliar versus familiar human faces to gauge visual-spatial encoding, attention, and working memory in infants. Our objective was to establish the feasibility of automated eye tracking with the FTII in HIV-exposed Ugandan infants. Method: The FTII was administered to 31 perinatally HIV-exposed noninfected (HEU) Ugandan children 6-12 months of age (11 boys; M = 0.69 years, SD = 0.14; 19 girls; M = 0.79, SD = 0.15). A series of 10 different faces were presented (familiar face exposure for 25 s followed by a gaze preference trial of 15 s with both the familiar and unfamiliar faces). Tobii X2-30 infrared camera for pupil detection provided automated eye-tracking measures of gaze location and length during presentation of Ugandan faces selected to correspond to the gender, age (adult, child), face expression, and orientation of the original FTII. Eye-tracking gaze length for unfamiliar faces was correlated with performance on the Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL). Results: Infants gazed longer at the novel picture compared to familiar across 10 novelty preference trials. Better MSEL cognitive development was correlated with proportionately longer time spent looking at the novel faces (r(30) = 0.52, p = .004); especially for the Fine Motor Cognitive Sub-scale (r(30) = 0.54, p = .002). Conclusion: Automated eye tracking in a human face recognition test proved feasible and corresponded to the MSEL composite cognitive development in HEU infants in a resource-constrained clinical setting. Eye tracking may be a viable means of enhancing the validity and accuracy of other neurodevelopmental measures in at-risk children in sub-Saharan Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper details how a task-based tutorial program for students studying abroad in China can improve the students' pragmatic competence and cross-cultural awareness. We describe the pragmatics tutoring curriculum, the pragmatics learning journals that are part of the curriculum, and a Chinese pragmatics test that we developed and used for this study. Pre- and post-tests of oral Chinese pragmatic ability were given to an experimental group (N = 19) of students who took the tutorial program while studying abroad in China for a summer and to a control group (N = 19) of students who did not take the program or study abroad. The test results, learning journals, and end-of-program surveys showed that the experimental group improved their pragmatic performance and cross-cultural awareness and had a positive attitude toward the enhanced study-abroad program. The study demonstrates that a summer study-abroad program that uses native-speaker interaction to improve pragmatic ability is beneficial. We discuss how and why the explicit teaching of pragmatics can and should be fully integrated into a study-abroad curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]