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English learners (ELs) in K-12 schools must acquire English while simultaneously mastering content knowledge. Educational technology may support students' learning through the affordance of individualized language practice. The current randomized controlled trial intervention study examined the effects of Rosetta Stone Foundations software on English learning among middle school ELs. The study took place in Grades 6 to 8 of an urban U.S. school district (N = 221). Predictors of interest included time of testing (pretest vs. posttest) and software usage, and covariates included grade level, sex, and attendance. Additionally, socioeconomic status and home language were accounted for due to sample homogeneity. Multilevel models indicated that treatment group students showed larger gains than control group students on oral/aural outcomes. These results indicate that the software intervention enables individualized practice that can produce proficiency-related gains over and above the typical classroom curriculum.

The acquisition of the grammar of a second language requiresa variety of cognitive mechanisms, including inductivereasoning. In the current study, we examine the cognitiveunderpinnings of grammar learning with an explicit-inductive(rule search) learning task, designed to capture more of thecomplexity associated with grammar learning than purelydeductive tasks. Research in language aptitude has shown thatworking memory capacity (WMC) is a key predictor ofgrammar learning outcomes. Inductive reasoning andgrammatical sensitivity are other established aptitude factors.The goal of the present study was to determine the degree towhich relevant variables predict learning on an explicit-inductive grammar learning task. Our results indicate that bothWMC and inductive reasoning ability predict learning overthree days of grammar training.

This study analyses the complex emotions and level of user engagement associated with mentions of Russia by Lithuanian socio-political influencers on publicly available Facebook posts between 2015 and 2020. Using the CrowdTangle API and a mixed methods approach to data, we examined four potentially sensitive periods – around elections, a political corruption scandal, and during the first COVID-19-related national lockdowns, annotated for emotion and topic content and analyzed with quantitative modeling of emotion data coupled with qualitative analysis of posts in order to contextualize results. Curiously, we found no heightened negativity expressed toward Russia around election time. We identified, however, considerable anger and contempt beneath the overall veneer of happiness in our sampled posts, with posts mentioning Russia generally containing more negative emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study examined a new spatial integration (SI)task, based on figural rather than linguistic stimuli, tomeasure the construct of mental modeling ability.Previous tasks conflated linguistic ability with mentalmodeling ability by requiring sentence processing, whichmay have contributed to mixed findings with respect tothe relationship between mental model ability andworking memory capacity (WMC). The figural spatialintegration task produced the canonical continuity effect,such that discontinuous items had lower accuracy thancontinuous items. Furthermore, WMC and visuospatialability predicted SI task performance, and both werestronger predictors for the continuous condition. Theinteractions between predictors and task conditionssuggest reliance on heuristics and/or rehearsal duringperformance of the more difficult discontinuous items.

Difficulty perceiving phonological contrasts in a second language (L2) can impede initial L2 lexical learning. Such is the case for English speakers learning tonal languages, like Mandarin Chinese. Given the hypothesized role of reduced neuroplasticity in adulthood limiting L2 phonological perception, the current study examined whether transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS), a relatively new neuromodulatory technique, can facilitate L2 lexical learning for English speakers learning Mandarin Chinese over 2 days. Using a double-blind design, one group of participants received 10 min of continuous priming taVNS before lexical training and testing each day, a second group received 500 msec of peristimulus (peristim) taVNS preceding each to-be-learned item in the same tasks, and a third group received passive sham stimulation. Results of the lexical recognition test administered at the end of each day revealed evidence of learning for all groups, but a higher likelihood of accuracy across days for the peristim group and a greater improvement in response time between days for the priming group. Analyses of N400 ERP components elicited during the same tasks indicate behavioral advantages for both taVNS groups coincided with stronger lexico-semantic encoding for target words. Comparison of these findings to pupillometry results for the same study reported in Pandža, N. B., Phillips, I., Karuzis, V. P., O'Rourke, P., and Kuchinsky, S. E. (Neurostimulation and pupillometry: New directions for learning and research in applied linguistics. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 40, 56–77, 2020) suggest that positive effects of priming taVNS (but not peristim taVNS) on lexico-semantic encoding are related to sustained attentional effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]