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The current narrative review focuses on cross-language influences (CLI) in spelling English as a foreign language (EFL). We identify three types of distance between first language (L1) and English that may impact English spelling, namely distance in writing system, in orthography and in phonology. The review describes and specifies the spelling difficulties that different groups of EFL learners may experience due to these distance types. We present a detailed examination of these inter-connected aspects of distance in order to characterize the different sources of CLI in spelling. Because CLI plays a significant role in learning a new language, understanding and characterizing the types of distance that lead to CLI has important implications for EFL instruction and learning. The empirical studies reviewed here clearly indicate that distance from L1 affects the English spelling of both beginning and advanced English learners, and this effect depends on the type of distance. In addition, we suggest that spelling difficulties are exacerbated in cases where L1 is distant from EFL in more than one way. Suggestions for future research are provided and pedagogical implications for EFL instruction are offered.

Reading efficiently in a second language (L2) is a crucial skill, but it is not universally achieved. Here we ask whether L2 reading efficiency is better captured as a language specific skill or whether it is mostly shared across L1 and L2, relying on general language abilities. To this end, we examined word frequency and predictability effects in sentence reading, and tested the same readers in L1 and L2, recording participants' eye-movements. Participants were 57 undergraduate bilingual speakers of Hebrew and English, languages that use different scripts, allowing for a clearer distinction between L1 and L2 processing. Both word frequency and word predictability effects were more pronounced in participants' L2 than in the L1, suggesting that both lower level and higher-order processes in reading are sensitive to language proficiency. Further, frequency effects in the L2 were linked with L2 proficiency but not general language abilities, and L2 predictability effects were not associated with either variable. Finally, readers' frequency and predictability effects in L1 and L2 were not associated with each other. Taken together, these results suggest that for different-script bilinguals, efficient reading in the L2 is a highly specific skill, dependent upon proficiency in that language, and drawing less on L1 and general language ability.

Success in higher education is highly dependent on students' ability to efficiently read and comprehend large amounts of text in the speaker's first/native language (L1) and also in a Foreign Language (FL). Good text comprehension requires readers to implement a variety of metacognitive processes in order to self-regulate understanding. However, most readers are inaccurate when monitoring their own comprehension level, in the native language. Several studies have investigated FL comprehension monitoring, mostly using self-report measures. The current study further explored the relationship between L1 and FL comprehension monitoring through the paradigm of 'calibration of comprehension' (Glenberg and Epstein in "Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition," 11, 702-718, 1985). Specifically, 145 university students read texts in each language, answered comprehension questions and rated their confidence. Absolute and relative monitoring accuracy was calculated (bias and resolution, respectively) to study whether comprehension monitoring processes are trait-oriented (shared across languages and domains) or skill-oriented (dependent on language proficiency level). Results suggested that absolute monitoring accuracy is both trait and skill oriented. On the one hand, confidence ratings and bias were significantly correlated across L1, FL and a non-verbal task, suggesting trait-orientation. On the other hand, only individuals who were highly proficient in the FL shared their absolute monitoring skills between the languages, supporting the notion of a skill orientation. Relative monitoring was not associated across tasks or languages. Theoretical and practical implications for effective instruction and learning methods are discussed.

This study examined the monitoring abilities of trilinguals in reading comprehension, addressing the following questions: Is comprehension monitoring related to reading comprehension across first, second, and third languages? Is comprehension monitoring shared across the languages of trilingual adults (domain-general) or rather linked to language proficiency (language-specific)? Eighty undergraduates, trilingual in Arabic, Hebrew, and English, read three texts in each language, answered multiple-choice questions, and rated their confidence in their responses. From this we derived the absolute and relative accuracy of monitoring. The results showed links between accurate monitoring and successful comprehension in all the languages of participants, but these were weaker in English, the least proficient language. Further, the results lend some support to the involvement of both domain-general and language-specific processes in comprehension monitoring. Specifically, monitoring seems to be utilized similarly by individuals to support comprehension across the first and second languages, but is less well generalized to the third language.

The current study examined the proficiency of Israeli adolescents in reading single words in English, which is taught as a foreign language, and what language skills predict individual variability. Parallel measures of word reading, phonology, decoding, morpho-syntax and vocabulary in Hebrew and English were administered to 217 adolescents in 8th and 11th grade. Following 5-8 years of English as a foreign language instruction, participants achieved reading levels commensurate with those of third to fourth grade native English-speaking children. Decoding and vocabulary knowledge were significant predictors of single word reading across both orthographies. Morpho-syntactic knowledge predicted word reading only in Hebrew. Further, there was pronounced variability in the extent to which phonological awareness and vocabulary predicted word reading across languages. Low levels of reading performance underline the inherent challenge in achieving reading proficiency in the complex English orthography in a foreign language setting, with limited instruction time and suboptimal pedagogy. Decoding and vocabulary are identified as important universal processes in reading, whereas differences in other predictors support script-dependent processes in reading as well.

The current study examined the effects of a computerized training program on reading comprehension, confidence ratings, and calibration of comprehension in adolescents with poor and good reading comprehension. Ninety 10th graders participated in the study and completed three training sessions. In each session, participants read two expository texts and answered multiple-choice questions. For each answer they gave, participants also rated their confidence. Participants were assigned to one of three online training conditions that differed in the type of immediate feedback provided after each question: (a) "Feedback on performance"; (b) "Feedback on performance and on calibration"; (c) "Feedback on performance with scaffolding (a cue for correcting wrong answers)". Results demonstrated that scaffolding feedback was the most effective training condition, leading to improved comprehension performance and calibration, especially for poor comprehenders. These findings highlight the necessity of developing theoretical and practice models of online feedback interventions for reading comprehension and self-evaluation abilities.

Lexical inferencing from text is a powerful tool for vocabulary and reading comprehension enhancement. Lexical inferencing relies on the pre-requisite skills of reading and existing vocabulary, and is also linked to non-verbal inferencing abilities and reading comprehension. In this study, we examined whether Fifth-grade Russian-speaking language minority (LM) students might exhibit reduced lexical inferencing abilities in comparison to their native Hebrew-speaking (NH) peers, due to their reduced proficiency in the societal language. Participants completed a measure of lexical inferencing during text reading, and measures of underlying skills, including vocabulary, word reading accuracy, reading comprehension and non-verbal inferencing. As a group, LM students demonstrated comparable lexical inferencing abilities to those of their NH peers despite significantly lower vocabulary knowledge in vocabulary. Two explanations are suggested; first, although LM students had reduced vocabulary, they were nonetheless above the vocabulary threshold required for text comprehension. Second, the regression analyses revealed that non-verbal inferencing explained unique variance only in the LM group, demonstrating that they recruited language-external resources to support lexical inferencing. The current results show that lexical inferencing can serve as a powerful tool for promoting reading comprehension and vocabulary, domains that are points of weakness for language minority students.

The current study examines the interplay between global and local processes in bilingual language control. We investigated language-switching performance of unbalanced Arabic-Hebrew bilinguals in cued picture naming, using 5 different cuing parameters. The language cue could precede the picture, follow it, or appear simultaneously with it. Naming latencies were reduced with precuing, demonstrating bilinguals' ability to globally modulate language activation, and more strongly reduced with postcuing, demonstrating bilinguals' ability to locally activate lemmas in both languages. Precuing reduced switching costs in reaction time (RT), and postcuing significantly reduced switching costs in accuracy, but not in RT. Switching costs were mostly symmetric for both languages, although participants were unbalanced bilinguals. These results support the notion that both global language selection and resolution of competition between activated lemmas are involved in bilingual language control. They further demonstrate that persisting language schema activation and local lemma selection and inhibition are equal across both languages of unbalanced bilinguals. Finally, results demonstrate that experimental manipulations of cuing parameters can have dissociable influences on overall RTs, and switch costs in latency and accuracy, suggesting that language-switching performance reflects complex interactions of bilingual profiles and task demands.

We examined reading proficiency, focusing on fluency, in 56 Russian-speaking language minority (LM) students and 56 native Hebrew-speaking (NH) peers. Fifth-grade students completed measures of Hebrew reading accuracy and fluency from word to text level as well as phonological awareness (PA), RAN and vocabulary. LM students read single words less accurately than NH students, in contrast to previous findings. This result can be understood in the context of Hebrew reading development, the transition to unvowelized reading at this age and the reduced vocabulary knowledge of the LM group. LM students also had lower accuracy and fluency in reading vowelized, and to a greater extent, unvowelized texts. These findings suggest that developing fluent text reading especially in the unvowelized Hebrew script is challenging for LM students, since it requires integrating linguistic and contextual information. Regression analyses demonstrated that although for NH students both PA and RAN were significant predictors of text reading fluency, for LM students PA was a major predictor of fluency, but RAN was not. This finding indicates that LM students relied on basic reading skills, and were less able to recruit automaticity to support fluent reading. Thus, the current results highlight the challenges of developing fluent reading among LM students, and underscore how patterns of achievement and difficulty might be related to the specific linguistic and orthographic characteristics of the societal language.

Bilinguals often show evidence of cross language influences, such as facilitation in processing cognates. Here we use computational methods for analyzing spontaneous English texts written by hundreds of speakers of different L1s, at different levels of English proficiency, to investigate writers' preference for using cognates over alternative word choices. We focus on English, since a majority of its lexicon is either of Romance or Germanic origin, allowing an investigation of the preference of speakers of Germanic and Romance L1s towards cognates between their L1 and English. Results show that L2 writers tend to prefer English cognates, and that this tendency is weaker as English proficiency level increases, suggesting diminishing effects of CLI. However, a comparison of the L2 writers with native English writers shows general overuse of cognates only for the Germanic, but not the Romance, L1 speakers, most likely due to the register of argumentative writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study examined the predictive roles of L2 vocabulary knowledge and L2 word reading skills in explaining individual differences in lexical inferencing in the L2. Participants were 53 Israeli high school students who emigrated from the former Soviet Union, and spoke Russian as an L1 and Hebrew as an L2. L2 vocabulary knowledge and decoding accuracy predicted L2 reading comprehension, which in turn was strongly related to lexical inferencing abilities in the L2. In addition, decoding accuracy predicted additional variance in lexical inferencing, beyond the role of reading comprehension. These findings support the idea that beginning L2 readers with more precise and efficient lexical representations demonstrate better lexical inferencing abilities, most likely due to the increased automatization of word reading, which frees up resources for higher level processing. These results suggest that lexical inferencing from text in the L2 might be limited not only by vocabulary knowledge and higher order comprehension processes, but also by basic decoding skills.

We investigated the influence of word class and translation ambiguity on cross-linguistic representation and processing. Bilingual speakers of English and Spanish performed translation production and translation recognition tasks on nouns and verbs in both languages. Words either had a single translation or more than one translation. Translation probability, as determined by normative data, was the strongest predictor of translation production and translation recognition, after controlling for psycholinguistic variables. Word class did not explain additional variability in translation performance, raising the possibility that previous findings of differences between nouns and verbs might be attributed to the greater translation ambiguity of verbs relative to nouns. Proficiency in the second language was associated with quicker and more successful production of translations for ambiguous words, and with more accurate recognition of translations for ambiguous words. Working memory capacity was related to the speed of recognizing low probability translations for ambiguous words. These results underscore the importance of considering translation ambiguity in research on bilingual lexical and conceptual knowledge.

Inhibitory control and monitoring abilities of Hebrew-English bilingual and English monolingual university students were compared, in a paradigm requiring participants to switch between performing three distinct tasks. Inhibitory control was gauged by lag-2 task repetition costs, namely decreased performance on the final trial of sequences of type ABA relative to CBA, due to persisting inhibition of the recently abandoned task. Bilinguals had larger lag-2 repetition costs, which reflect stronger inhibition of a no-longer relevant task to facilitate a switch into a new task. Monitoring ability was measured by the fadeout effect, which reflects adaptation to simpler task demands when a single task block immediately and unexpectedly follows mixed task blocks. Bilinguals did not differ from monolinguals in the magnitude or trajectory of the fade-out effect. Thus, results support the notion of increased bilingual inhibitory control, even when it is detrimental to performance, and do not demonstrate a specific bilingual advantage in monitoring. These findings are discussed in the context of the recent debate concerning the locus of bilingual advantages. (Contains 2 tables and 4 figures.)

We compare translations of single words, made by bilingual speakers in a laboratory setting, with contextualized translation choices of the same items, made by professional translators and extracted from parallel language corpora. The translation choices in both cases show moderate convergence, demonstrating that decontextualized translation probabilities partially reflect bilinguals' life experience regarding the conditional distributions of alternative translations. Lexical attributes of the target word differ in their ability to predict translation probability: form similarity is a stronger predictor in decontextualized translation choice, whereas word frequency and semantic salience are stronger predictors for context-embedded translation choice. These findings establish the utility of parallel language corpora as important tools in psycholinguistic investigations of bilingual language processing. (Contains 3 tables, 1 figure, and 3 notes.)

This study investigated the possibility that lifelong bilingualism may lead to enhanced efficiency in the ability to shift between mental sets. We compared the performance of monolingual and fluent bilingual college students in a task-switching paradigm. Bilinguals incurred reduced switching costs in the task-switching paradigm when compared with monolinguals, suggesting that lifelong experience in switching between languages may contribute to increased efficiency in the ability to shift flexibly between mental sets. On the other hand, bilinguals did not differ from monolinguals in the differential cost of performing mixed-task as opposed to single-task blocks. Together, these results indicate that bilingual advantages in executive function most likely extend beyond inhibition of competing responses, and encompass flexible mental shifting as well.