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This article responds to calls for greater inclusivity in second language acquisition research and, more specifically, to calls to explore further the impact of first language literacy on second language oracy (e.g., Tarone et al., 2009). We conducted a partial replication of Foster and Skehan's (1996) influential study of task complexity, planning time, and performance over measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency. The initial study and others had provided robust evidence to suggest that planning time had a positive impact on task performance, particularly for more cognitively demanding tasks. We conducted our replication with adult second language learners with low first language literacy, most of whom were former refugees. Contrary to previous studies, the findings indicate little to no evidence that planning time led to improved linguistic performance. It is not immediately clear why this should be so, and our findings highlight the need for further research with this underrepresented group.

We investigated the potential influence of implicit learning mechanisms on L2 morphosyntactic attainment by examining the relationship between age of onset (AoO), two cognitive abilities hypothesized to underlie implicit learning (phonological short-term memory and implicit statistical learning), and performance on an auditory grammaticality judgment test (GJT). Participants were 71 Polish-English long-term bilinguals with a wide range of AoOs (1-35 years) who differed in their context of learning and use (immersed vs. instructed). In immersed learners, we observed a growing dissociation between performance on grammatical and ungrammatical sentences as AoO was delayed. This effect was attenuated in those with better phonological short-term memory and statistical learning abilities and is consistent with a decline in the ability to learn from implicit negative evidence. In instructed learners, GJT performance was subject to additive effects of AoO and grammaticality and was not associated with either cognitive predictor, suggesting that implicit learning mechanisms were not involved.

This paper reviews how the construct of oral fluency in a second language (L2) has been defined and researched over the last twenty-five years. The emerging picture is somewhat kaleidoscopic, as domains of cognitive, social, individual and linguistic influences on L2 speech have been opened up for study. L2 fluency research presents a wealth of directions for future exploration, five of which have been laid out here as an achievable, though not comprehensive, agenda for the coming decade. Four of these studies focus on the relationship between variables such as perceived fluency, utterance fluency, idiomaticity, task familiarity, vocabulary size and learner self-reflection, while the fifth focusses on supporting fluency development in the L2 classroom. As an aid to prospective researchers, the five studies are laid out in practical detail, together with suggestions on how these might need to be altered to fit the local context in which the research is undertaken.

It is well established that part of native speaker competence resides in knowledge of conventionalized word combinations, or nativelike selections (NLSs). This article reports an investigation into the receptive NLS knowledge of second language (L2) users of English in both the United Kingdom and Poland and the influence of a variety of independent variables on this knowledge. Results indicate that only an early start (< 12 years old) in an immersion setting guarantees nativelikeness. Long exposure in late starters brings moderate gains in both settings but not to nativelike levels; positive feelings toward the L2 and motivation to interact in it bear little to no relationship with NLS; phonological short-term memory (pSTM) is the only predictor of NLS ability in immersion late starters, with no effect found in a foreign language setting. Our results suggest that NLS is subject to age effects and that, for late starters, a good pSTM and L2 immersion are necessary for the acquisition of this dimension of L2 knowledge.

This article argues that a native-speaker baseline is a neglected dimension of studies into second language (L2) performance. If we investigate how learners perform language tasks, we should distinguish what performance features are due to their processing an L2 and which are due to their performing a particular task. Having defined what we mean by "native speaker," we present the background to a research study into task features on nonnative task performance, designed to include native-speaker data as a baseline for interpreting nonnative-speaker performance. The nonnative results, published in this journal (Tavakoli & Foster, 2008) are recapitulated and then the native-speaker results are presented and discussed in the light of them. The study is guided by the assumption that limited attentional resources impact on L2 performance and explores how narrative design features--namely complexity of storyline and tightness of narrative structure--affect complexity, fluency, accuracy, and lexical diversity in language. The results show that both native and nonnative speakers are prompted by storyline complexity to use more subordinated language, but narrative structure had different effects on native and nonnative fluency. The learners, who were based in either London or Tehran, did not differ in their performance when compared to each other, except in lexical diversity, where the learners in London were close to native-speaker levels. The implications of the results for the applicability of Levelt's model of speaking to an L2 are discussed, as is the potential for further L2 research using native speakers as a baseline.

This article presents a study examining how narrative structure and narrative complexity might influence the performance of second language learners. Forty learners of English in London and sixty learners in Teheran were asked to retell cartoon stories from picture prompts. Each performed two of four narrative tasks that had different degrees of narrative structure (loose or tight) and of storyline complexity (with or without background events). Results support the findings of previous research that tight task structure is connected to increased accuracy and that narratives involving background information give rise to more complex syntax. A comparison of the data from the London and Teheran cohorts showed that the learners in London used significantly more complex syntax and diverse vocabulary even though they did not differ from the Teheran learners in other performance dimensions.

This paper investigates the value of language classroom negotiation of meaning from both cognitive and sociocultural perspectives. According to Long (1985, 1996) comprehensible input gained through interactional adjustments such as negotiating meaning and modifying output is central to second language acquisition, and much research has been undertaken to discover which classroom activities give learners the greatest benefit from this type of interaction (Pica 1994). This paper discusses the measures typically used to identify negotiated interaction and proposes that more rigorous definitions need to be employed to separate signals of communication problems from signals of interest and encouragement. In the study reported for this paper, learners were recorded during an interactive classroom task, and the incidence of negotiation moves (learners? clarification requests, comprehension and confirmation checks) was calculated by counting only those instances where communication problems were clearly signalled. The quantitative results show that the incidence of negotiating meaning was very low. A qualitative analysis of the data subsequently investigated what was going on in the long stretches of interaction that lacked any signs of meaning negotiation. A picture emerges of learners actively assisting each other to transact the task through co-construction and prompting. Learners expressed interest and encouragement while seeking and providing assistance and initiating self-repair of their own utterances, all in the absence of communication breakdowns. Obtaining completely comprehensible input appeared to be of lower priority than maintaining a supportive and friendly discourse. Negotiation is one of a range of conversational processes that facilitate SLA as learners work to understand and express meaning in the L2.

The analysis of spoken language requires a principled way of dividing transcribed data into units in order to assess features such as accuracy and complexity. This article discusses a reliable and comprehensibly defined unit to assist with the analysis of a variety of recordings of native and nonnative speakers of English. (Author/VWL)

Examines different sources of planning (teacher-led, solitary, group-based) as well as different foci for planning (towards language or towards content). Results are discussed in relation to how teachers may more effectively make pedagogic decisions on task implementation conditions linked to selective pedagogic goals. (Author/VWL)

Explored the effects of inherent task structure and processing load on narrative retelling task performance, analyzing task performance in terms of competition among fluency, complexity, and accuracy. Research with young adults found that degree of inherent task structure more strongly affected fluency of performance. Processing load influenced language complexity. Performance accuracy depended on interaction between task structure and processing load. (SM)

Examines how college-level intermediate English-as-a-Second-Language students modify interaction when engaged in small-group versus pair work, and whether task type (optional versus required information exchange) affects amount of language and interaction individual students produce. Results suggest "negotiation of meaning" is not a strategy learners are predisposed to using when encountering a gap in understanding. (Author/MSE)

Given recent claims that task-based instruction has desirable pedagogic qualities, this article investigates the effects of choosing different types of tasks, as well as different task implementation conditions, on the fluency, accuracy, and complexity of the language that is produced when tasks are carried out. (Author/VWL)

Traditional market research methods that rely on explicit respondent feedback, such as focus groups or surveys, often fail to detect the deep-seated, often subconscious, emotions towards brands that reside in consumers' minds. Recently, there has been considerable interest in the ability of well-established psychological tests that capture people's implicit responses using speeded reaction time paradigms to tap in to these subconscious associations. In this paper, we describe the use of an adapted semantic priming paradigm to measure the strength of implicit consumer associations between a range of psychological attributes and competitor brands within this media category. The study was conducted online across ten countries and, within each country, against nine relevant competitive brands of the MTV channel. Analysis of the resulting implicit dataset revealed large statistical differences between brands in terms of consumers' subconscious feelings that were not captured by previous explicit research methodologies into consumer brand engagement. This study clearly demonstrates the power and usefulness of combining implicit and explicit online research data to gain maximum understanding of consumers' true feelings about brands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]