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The Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics has released its first regular issue of 2024, featuring six articles and two book reviews. The articles cover a range of topics, including reading development in young French learners, language support screening procedures, native speaker evaluations of second language learners, and the role of language educators. One article focuses on a study of phonological awareness intervention for English-speaking kindergarteners in a French immersion program, while another discusses a remedial program for prosodic skills in French-speaking students. Additionally, there are articles on screening-diagnostic assessments for college students, the comprehensibility of expressions by French second language learners, and the perspectives of educators in French immersion programs and multilingual pedagogy in an international school. The issue also includes book reviews and announces a future special issue on written corrective feedback. [Extracted from the article]

Over the last few years, there has been a noticeable increase in the use of eye-tracking in second language (L2) learner process research. The previous reviews of eye-tracking language research have focused primarily either on providing guidelines for using this technological data source and/or on highlighting selected eye-tracking studies in one or two second language acquisition (SLA) areas. Thus, there is still a need for a review that covers the research and methodological issues of using eye-tracking in multiple L2 learner process areas. Addressing such gap, this paper reviews the eye-tracking L2 learner process studies published between 2011 and 2018. Specifically, the paper focuses on reviewing the eye-tracking L2 learner process research areas, the issues addressed by the studies in each area, and the data collection and analysis approaches used in these studies. It was found that eye-tracking has been used in eight L2 learner process research areas: vocabulary processing and learning, listening comprehension, syntactic processing, written text production, reading comprehension, text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC), oral communication, and data validation. The paper reveals that data collection and analysis approaches have differed from one area to another, and it provides some research and methodological suggestions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sentence-level grammar skills are of the important foundations in the mastery of reading skills in second language (L2). Previous studies showed inconclusive findings about the effect of grammar knowledge on L2 reading. This study examines the relationship between L2 reading outcomes and reader-based grammar knowledge as it is moderated by text-based features of vocabulary difficulty. Participants were EFL students (n = 71) in the second year of their English major at an Indonesian university. The participants' grammar knowledge was measured using a test of sentence-level grammatical knowledge. Text-based vocabulary difficulty was assessed using VocabProfile software (Cobb, 2010). During the data collection period, the participants completed four reading texts, each reflecting a unique combination of two levels (high vs. low) of lexical frequency. This study reveals that reader grammar knowledge influenced L2 reading outcomes. It also shows that text vocabulary difficulty significantly moderated the relationship between reader grammatical knowledge and L2 reading, indicating that the relationship between grammar knowledge and L2 reading for high lexical frequency texts was significantly greater than for low lexical frequency texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents empirical evidence aimed at informing approaches to vocabulary development for the purpose of supporting L2 listening comprehension. Inferential statistics were used to analyze the relationship between second language (L2) aural vocabulary knowledge (AVK), L2 listening comprehension and the overall L2 proficiency among 247 tertiary level L2 learners of English. Three frequency based levels of AVK were measured. Measures of level 1 (0–2000 frequency range) and level 2 words (2001–3000 frequency range) tapped AVK of high frequency words, and level 3 words (3001–5000 frequency range) tapped AVK of words just beyond the high frequency range. Listening comprehension was measured with a version of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). Regression modeling showed that AVK at each of the three levels contributed uniquely to the prediction of L2 listening for the entire cohort. Only measures of level 2 and 3 AVK were uniquely predictive of L2 listening for a relatively high proficiency subgroup, whereas only level 1 AVK offered a unique contribution to the prediction of L2 listening scores for a relatively low proficiency subgroup. Results are interpreted in order to provide a range of pedagogical recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regression modeling is an increasingly important quantitative tool for second language (L2) research. While superior in many ways to more traditional methods, such as ANOVA, regression modeling, like all procedures, still has limitations, ranging from small sample sizes to a lack of screening for outliers and influential data points (Plonsky and Ghanbar, 2018). Since these limitations are common features in L2 research, this raises concerns that existing studies using regression may overfit the data, perhaps inflating effect size estimates. These issues can be partially alleviated via robust statistics, such as validation. This paper provides L2 researchers with an overview of these issues and an instructive look at one robust validation method: bootstrapping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated Vietnamese EFL learners’ knowledge of verb–noun and adjective–noun collocations at the first three 1,000 word frequency levels, and the extent to which five factors (node word frequency, collocation frequency, mutual information score, congruency, and part of speech) predicted receptive knowledge of collocation. Knowledge of single-word items at the same word frequency levels was also examined. The results indicated that the participants were not close to a level of mastery of collocational knowledge at any word frequency level; knew less than 50% of each type of collocation overall; and that their knowledge of collocation significantly decreased at each level. The analysis also revealed that there were significant large positive correlations between knowledge of collocations and single-word items, and that node word frequency was the strongest predictor of receptive knowledge of collocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the problems of studying ambiguous words in the second language. Particular focus is given to the function of inhibitory control in word learning and the significance of semantics. Other topics addressed include the relation between semantics and ambiguous words and the lexical representation of words.

This paper compared the vocabulary size of a group of 250 bilinguals aged 24–36 months acquiring six different language pairs using an analogous tool, and attempted to identify factors that influence vocabulary sizes and ultimately place children at risk for language delay. Each research group used adaptations of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories: Words and Sentences and a specially designed developmental and language background questionnaire to gather information on risk factors for language impairment, demographic and language exposure variables. The results showed a wide range in vocabulary development which could be somewhat attributed to mothers’ education status, parental concerns about language development and amount of exposure to the second language. We looked at those children performing below the 10th and above the 90th percentile to determine what factors were related to their vocabulary size. Features of the entire group of lower performing children were fewer than 50 words and the absence of two-word combinations by 24 months, lower levels of parental education and parental concerns about language development. The implications for identifying bilingual children at risk for language impairment as well as the language enrichment that might be needed for young bilinguals are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we report on an experiment set up to investigate lexical richness and collocational competence in the written production of 39 lowintermediate and intermediate learners of Italian L2. Lexical richness was assessed by means of a lexical profiling method inspired by Laufer and Nation (1995) and developed by Bardel, Lindqvist and Gudmundson (Bardel and Lindqvist 2011; Bardel et al. 2012; Lindqvist et al. 2011, Lindqvist et al. 2013). The lexical profiler was used to compare the lexical richness of the L2 texts with that of 18 native speakers of Italian. The study focuses on the relationship between lexical richness, operationalized as lexical frequency, and the overall proficiency level in Italian of the L2 learners, measured by a C-test. In order to get a deeper insight into the development of lexical skills in L2, next to the lexical profiling method, an additional analysis of the use of collocations in L2 and L1 was carried out. The results show that although a relationship in L2 between lexical richness, collocational competence and general language proficiency could not be demonstrated, there appeared to be a number of traits which differentiate L2 and L1 writers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigated the relative contributions of vocabulary knowledge, grammar knowledge, and processing speed to second language listening and reading comprehension. Seventy-five Korean university students participated in the study. Results showed the three tested components had a significant portion of shared variance in explaining LC (33.9%) and RC (41.8%) without any unique significant contribution of each component. Two comprehension processes were similar in that vocabulary knowledge in its corresponding presentation mode and parsing best predicted a respective comprehension construct but different in that processing speed was part of the best combination of predictors only in RC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Latin American Journal of Content & Language Integrated Learning is the property of Universidad de La Sabana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Research interest in second or foreign language (L2 or FL) vocabulary learning has been extended to encompass the field of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) in an attempt to improve competence in communication. In this study, a technology-enhanced strategy use (TESU) system was designed to engage L2 learners in the deeper processing of vocabulary while learning new lexical items. TESU enables learners to employ a range of available vocabulary learning strategies (e.g., keyword strategy), as well as e-tools (e.g., drawing and mind mapping) provided in the TESU system to practice English vocabulary outside of the classroom. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the prototype TESU system on the young learners' vocabulary gain. Two intact classes of 47 sixth graders were randomly assigned as the experimental and control groups. The instruments used included an online vocabulary pre-test administered prior to the treatments, and an online vocabulary post-test as well as a written recall test following the treatments. The preliminary results derived from the Independent-samples t-test indicated that the experimental group performed better than the control group in terms of vocabulary gain as the post-test and the vocabulary written recall reached a level of significance (p < .05). The findings also demonstrate the feasibility of utilizing the TESU system to learn new vocabulary and to collect data concerning the learners' vocabulary strategy use. Furthermore, this study provides evidence that the TESU system can encourage students to practice some useful but infrequently-employed strategies (e.g., the mnemonic keyword method). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We evaluated the effectiveness of a stimulus pairing observation procedure to facilitate tact and listener relations in preschool children learning a second language. This procedure resulted in the establishment of most listener relations as well as some tact relations. Multiple-exemplar training resulted in the establishment of most of the remaining relations. The implications for the use of these procedures to establish simple vocabulary skills in children are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined whether there were significant differences between males and females in comprehension, vocabulary acquisition and vocabulary retention in the video-based computer assisted language learning (CALL) program. In total, 74 male and 43 female university students taking Freshman English course in Taiwan joined this study. A quantitative analysis of video comprehension tests, vocabulary immediate tests, and vocabulary retention tests was conducted. Two types of videotexts ranked as easy and difficult materials were used. The statistic results showed that first, regardless of videotext difficulty, females achieved higher percentage scores than males in comprehension, vocabulary immediate, and vocabulary retention tests. Second, with an easy videotext, females achieved significantly higher scores of comprehension and vocabulary retention tests than males. Third, a within-group comparison showed that females achieved significantly higher scores of both vocabulary immediate and retention tests of the easy segment than their scores of the difficult segment. Fourth, males themselves acquired vocabulary significantly better while viewing the easy segment; however, males' comprehension of the difficult videotext was significantly better than their score of the easy one. Finally, instructional recommendations were presented to enhance L2 instruction through the video-based CALL program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the reply to the commentary by Beniko Mason and Stephen Krashen on the article "The Reality, Rubostness, and Possible Superiority of Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition," by Kieran A. File and Rebecca Adams. The authors believe that form-focused approach is superior to incidental learning since it includes more instructional time during reading. The vocabulary exposure in form-focused approach and the relation of extensive reading to incidental learning are also discussed.

The present investigation consists of two studies examining the effects of cross-language transfer on the development of phonological awareness and literacy skills among Chinese children who received different amounts of English instruction. Study 1 compared Chinese students in regular English programs (92 first graders and 93 third graders) with peers who did not receive English instruction (86 first graders and 91 third graders). Study 2 was a 2-year longitudinal study that followed Chinese children from the beginning of Grade 1 to the end of Grade 2; the children attended either an intensive English program (79 children) or a regular English program (80 children). In both studies, children received phonological awareness tasks in English and Chinese, and literacy measures in Chinese. Results suggest that (a) English instruction accelerates the development of Chinese phonological awareness and Pinyin skills through cross-language transfer; (b) the pattern of cross-language transfer reflects the phonological features of English, the source language; and (c) a threshold level of 2nd language proficiency is required before any positive effects can be detected in the 1st language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]