Instructed Second Language Acquisition

We are delighted to present this collection of manuscripts that focus on various aspects of Intercultural Competence in this Special Issue of Dimensions 2016. Our hope for this Special Issue is not only to bring attention to the innovative programmatic changes and best teaching practices presented in the following chapters, but also to stimulate discussion in the field on the convergence of the diverse terminology used for a common end goal of fostering learners’ intercultural competence. The development of language learners’ intercultural competence—or more completely stated, intercultural communicative competence—engages them in a most profound educational experience, one that will serve them well throughout life. This competence enables learners not only to understand other peoples, but also to understand themselves better, and to be able to compare and contrast cultures in ways not otherwise possible. Most of all, it enables them to develop successful relationships with other people, both within and across cultures. This, we consider to be at the heart of our work.

There is pressure on world language educators to prepare learners with 21st century skills to meet the challenges of an increasingly interconnected globalized world. The need for change was summarized in the 2007 report of the MLA Ad Hoc Committee on Foreign Languages that suggested the implementation of curricular reform by developing students' " translingual and transcultural competence " (p. 3) which allows someone " to operate between languages " (p.237). However , the integration of such a meaningful cultural component in instructed language learning is a complex topic. This book recognizes the difficulty world language educators face to achieve the goals of the MLA report, particularly at beginning levels of instruction in target language use classrooms. Accordingly, this book informs instructed language learning and teaching by bridging developmental theories from the fields of intercultural competence with second language pedagogies—particularly communicative language teaching (CLT) and literacy-based approaches—providing examples of practical applications inside the classroom and beyond. It is intended to support the many FL educators who have consistently reported that they are struggling to incorporate meaningful cultural instruction into their practice (Fox & Diaz This book provides a framework to foster learners' deep cultural reflection at beginning levels of instruction while preserving target language use policies, bridging CLT pedagogies to intercultural communicative competence (ICC) literacy-based approaches. It starts by synthesizing prominent definitions of culture and culture learning models and then summarizes disparate sources of research findings on culture learning projects (which primarily take place at advanced levels of language learning) to the Standards-based classroom at all levels of instruction, K-16. Although research on fostering learners' intercultural competence at beginning levels of language instruction is in its infancy, it is of utmost concern given that the vast majority of U.S. language learners rarely continue to advanced levels of instruction (Zimmer-Lowe, 2008). In addition, this book challenges FL educators to advocate for their FL programs and to give greater visibility and credibility to the profession in institutional internationalization efforts. The theoretical components of this book deconstruct the connections between language, thought and culture and problematize developmental models in the IC field that neglect to consider the important role of language. This book provides K-16 FL educators with the discourse needed to 1) explain to administrators, parents and students how world language study prepares learners to compete in an increasingly global market beyond the learner's development of linguistic proficiency and 2) convince administrators of the value in and the need for world language study in order to support institutional internationalization efforts. The last chapter of this book provides guidance and suggestions on ways to expand K-12 teacher preparation programs and continuing education training to foster learners' intercultural communicative competence while preserving a Standards-based curriculum. In sum, this book is intended to 1) support all K-16 world language educators with their program advocacy and instruction; 2) serve as a reference manual or course book in teacher preparation programs; 3) serve as a reference manual or course book for research and graduate courses on the teaching and learning of languages.

The interaction approach, fueled by interaction-based research in second language acquisition (SLA), has come a long way since it was first proposed during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Researchers have advanced from verifying the positive effects of interaction on second language learning (e.g., Ellis et al. 1994; Long, 1980, 1983; Mackey & Goo, 2007; Swain, 1985) to investigating the internal characteristics of interaction by uncovering the multiple dimensions that are involved in more detail (Long, 1996) and updating constructs and coding systems (Kowal & Swain, 1994). The depth and breadth of information that interaction-based research has generated, as portrayed throughout this book, has helped both researchers and language instructors further understand the conditions under which interaction may benefit instructed SLA. One of the variables that can be manipulated and observed in such interactional settings is feedback, which is emphasized throughout the book as the author’s main research focus.

Published in LLP: https://llpjournal.org/2020/10/25/j-york-how-to-teach-languages-with-among-us.html
● What is this? A guide to using the popular multiplayer game “Among Us”
for teaching languages
● Why did you make it? Having played the game myself, I recognised its
potential as a language learning tool and expect other teachers would
appreciate a guide on how to use it.
● Who is it for? Teachers that would like to harness the social and cultural
capital that students possess through knowledge of modern, online,
multiplayer video games.
● What did you include? Post-play worksheets and a number of reasons
explaining WHY a teacher may want to use such games in their context

e culture straniere, Università di Roma Tre. Il contributo è frutto della stretta collaborazione tra gli autori; per quanto riguarda la stesura materiale, D. Cortés Velásquez è responsabile dei § § 2, 3.2 e 3.3, E. Nuzzo dei § § 1, 3.1 e 4. 2 O straniera: consideriamo qui indistintamente i due contesti didattici.

The present study aimed to examine whether distributed practice works better than massed practice for proceduralization of grammatical knowledge. Learners of Japanese as a second language were trained on an element of Japanese morphology under either massed or distributed practice conditions. Results showed that massed practice led to accurate utterances to the same extent as distributed practice. It was also shown that massed practice may lead to more rapid utterances than distributed practice. A number of potential factors that mediate the effects of distributed practice are discussed.

Linguistic input is considered one of the most important prerequisites for the acquisition of a foreign language. In recent decades, theoretical approaches within a cognitive-interactionist framework (Long, 2015) have identified various aspects of L2 input and characteristics of instruction that predict learners’ L2 outcomes. Teaching principles relate (1) to characteristics of communicative activities in which the L2 is embedded and encountered by the learners, and (2) to the quality of L2 input, L2 interactions and learners’ L2 output (Ellis & Shintani, 2014). They are in line with task-based and content-based L2 teaching approaches. This chapter starts out with the theoretical underpinnings to L2 instructional principles (Gass et al., 2020, Kormos, 2011, Leow, 2015, Truscott & Sharwood Smith, 2019). Based on two graphical illustrations on characteristics and processes in ISLA and internal knowledge construction, it introduces the roles of sensory input and individual perception, the internal meaning-making process, prior knowledge and selective attention. Consequences of this type of information processing for instruction are discussed with respect to the instigation of noticing, salience, cognitive activation and depth of processing. The second part of the paper gives an overview of characteristics of teachers’ linguistic behavior which includes how teachers modify verbal input in the L2 both lexically, structurally and prosodically, how they shape communicative interactions in terms of authenticity, negotiation of meaning, feedback and focus on form, and how they create opportunities for productive L2 output of the learners. Linguistic input is typically supported by different types of non-verbal scaffolding techniques and is embedded in communicative-instructional activities that have the potential to facilitate L2 acquisition. Especially scaffolding techniques which foster comprehensible input are crucial in early stages of SLA. Instructional characteristics of activities comprise autonomous action-oriented problem-solving (construction of knowledge), the activation of learners’ prior experiences, the stimulation of multiple senses, and a positive learning environment. The goal of these instructional principles is to pro-vide comprehensibility and cognitive stimulation during the L2 acquisition process, induce wide-spread neural activity and ultimately facilitate long-term retention. All of these principles are derived from the above mentioned theoretical framework and operationalized as ‘teaching techniques’ in the Teacher Input Observation Scheme (TIOS, Kersten et al., 2018) which serves as a structuring matrix for the second part of the paper. Techniques are defined as “description of how a communicative behavior or activity is carried out in the classroom at a given moment as the actual point of contact with the learner/s”. This operationalization has specific measurement implications for research studies as it provides a systematic basis of multidimensional categories of L2 teaching techniques. In terms of teaching practice, the classification of these techniques allows for L2 classroom observation, teacher training and teachers’ self-evaluation. The paper closes with empirical and practical examples on the effect of such teaching techniques in preschool and primary school classrooms. The TIOS can be downloaded at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340096869_Teacher_Input_Observation_Scheme_TIOS_and_Manual. Revised version, to appear in: Special Issue on 'Teaching English to Young Learners' (Cirocki, A. & Wilden, E., eds.), The European Journal of Applied Linguistics and TEFL, 2021 (2). (under review)

The aim of the study is to investigate the possible effects of second language acquisition on performance in tasks recquiring creativity and linguistic creativity. Participants in the study were Hungarian learners of English (dual-language school pupils and non-language specialized pupils) whose creative ability was measured with a standardized creativity test and tasks compiled for measuring linguistic creativity. Creativity and linguistic creativity were measured by the three aspects of creativity - originality, flexibility and creative fluency. Findings suggest that there is no correlation between results of creativity and linguistic creativity, although daily contact of a second language might have a possitive effect on linguistic creativity.

In questo contributo intendiamo mostrare come un corpus raccolto a scopo di ricerca su aspetti pragmatici dell’italiano possa rappresentare una risorsa interessante anche per l’insegnamento della lingua a stranieri. Il corpus su cui si basa il lavoro proviene da un progetto di pragmatica transculturale dedicato all’atto linguistico del rifiuto a un invito. Nel contributo si analizza, in particolare, il modo in cui gli italiani sono soliti disdire un impegno preso in precedenza accettando un invito. L’analisi del campione di dati offre diversi spunti interessanti per una descrizione della disdetta in italiano, utile per chi volesse fare oggetto di riflessione esplicita questo atto linguistico con apprendenti di L2. In concreto, si presentano gli schemi piu frequenti per la realizzazione di una disdetta, il tipo di modificatori usati e la variazione legata alla distanza sociale tra chi disdice e il destinatario della disdetta. Cancelling an appointment: ideas for italian L2 teaching b...

Task-based research has investigated the learning opportunities (e.g. language related episodes) that emerge during heritage and second language learner interactions during writing tasks. However, to date, it is unknown how these peer interactions involving heritage language learners contribute to written texts. Further, given the rise of social technologies in educational settings, a need exists to examine how interactions in digital platforms affect the production of written texts. To address these issues, 13 heritage-second language learner and 16 heritage-heritage learner pairs enrolled in advanced Spanish content courses completed two distinct versions of writing tasks. Participants were instructed that they were hired as business consultants for clothing and cellphone companies in Spain. While each participant wrote her or his own version, the pairs had to interact to compose formal business letters in Spanish to the CEO of each company justifying the hiring (Task A) or laying off (Task B) of employees. The main results first revealed that heritage-heritage pairs produced more syntactically complex business letters, as evidenced by a greater ratio of syntactic subordination along with a minor trend of greater morphosyntactic accuracy. Second, synchronous computer-mediated communication interactions led to a higher production of syntactic coordination, especially for the heritage-second language pairs. Findings are discussed in light of the interplay between learner factors and task environment.

The extent to which learners benefit from instruction may be largely dependent on their individual abilities. However, there is relatively little work on the interaction between instructional effectiveness in second language learning and learner individual factors. In this study, we investigated the relationship between instruction, individual differences in cognitive abilities (working memory and declarative memory), and second language vocabulary acquisition in the context of web-based intelligent computer assisted language learning (ICALL). To this end, 127 adult learners of English, predominantly advanced-level, German-speaking learners, read news texts on the web for about two weeks using an ICALL system under two instructional conditions: form-focused and meaning-focused instruction. Learners in the form-focused condition read and completed automatically-generated multiple-choice gaps where phrasal verbs appeared in the text, while learners in the meaning-focused condition sim...

The present study has two main aims, on both a pedagogic and theoretical level. The pedagogic focus is to provide a theoretical and experimental basis for instructional techniques that trigger enhanced incidental learning. The rationale for enhanced incidental learning lies in the need to improve L2 speakers’ implicit knowledge, which requires keeping learning as incidental and unconscious as possible. At the same time, purely incidental conditions result in slow and limited knowledge gains, and this shows the need for devices capable of speeding up acquisition while simultaneously keeping the learner’s level of consciousness below the awareness threshold. Enhanced incidental learning is such a device.
The need to verify whether such conditions are capable of triggering genuine incidental learning and resulting in implicit knowledge leads to the second aim of the study. This focuses on a more theoretical and psycholinguistic issue: the relationship between the level of consciousness at the point of learning and the kind of knowledge gained. As a corollary of this investigation, the possibility for learning to take place below the level of awareness is addressed.
The target structure chosen for the experiment is formulaic sequences, since mastering them is considered both a crucial and problematic part of second language acquisition. Notably, the capacity of the human brain to unconsciously tally co-occurrences makes formulaic language an optimal target structure for the investigation of statistical incidental learning.
83 Chinese learners of Italian L2 were exposed to reading-while-listening to a graded reader including seven occurrences of each target idiom. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four experimental groups and exposed to the target items with (i) typographical, (ii) aural, (iii) typographical + aural, or (iv) no additional enhancement. A control group performed the tests with no treatment. Learning was assessed through both offline and online tests, which were performed immediately after the treatment and again three weeks
later. To investigate the learners’ level of consciousness, a subsample of participants had their eye movements recorded at the process level. In addition, stimulated recalls provided information about participants’ awareness of the enhancement devices and the learning task.
Findings show that significant knowledge was gained. Awareness measures show that treatments involving typographical enhancement resulted in intentional rather than incidental learning, which was confirmed by the post-test detecting mainly explicit
knowledge. While confirming the effectiveness of typographical enhancement for explicit knowledge gains, this result shows that learning conditions involving it cannot be considered incidental.
In contrast, subjects exposed to aural enhancement allocated additional attention to the target items without being aware of it, therefore engaging in genuine incidental learning. This process resulted in both explicit knowledge (at the receptive level only) and significantly increased automatic familiarity with the target items. This finding is original and important on two levels. First, it provides evidence for the effectiveness of aural enhancement, which was lacking in the existing literature. Secondly, it supports the possibility for enhanced incidental learning to take place below the level of awareness, thus contributing to a key debate in the SLA field.
Results concerning the increased-frequency-only treatment are not straightforward and therefore need further research.

Il contributo è frutto della stretta collaborazione tra gli autori; per quanto riguarda la stesura materiale, D. Cortés Velásquez è responsabile dei § § 2, 3.2 e 3.3, E. Nuzzo dei § § 1, 3.1 e 4. 2 O straniera: consideriamo qui indistintamente i due contesti didattici.

En 2013 casi 20 millones de personas estudiaban español en el mundo. Solo en Estados Unidos hay ya cerca de 8 millones de estudiantes de español y en Europa superan los 5 millones, repartidos por 38 países (instituto Cervantes 2013). El valor económico del idioma es innegable: se estima que el 15 % del PiB del estado español se vincula a la lengua, ya sea como producto de mercado (enseñanza del idioma), como soporte para las industrias de creación y comunicación o como idioma de los negocios. Todas las previsiones señalan un aumento de hablantes de español (nativos y no nativos), por lo que el futuro de su enseñanza es sin duda prometedor. Al mismo tiempo abundan los retos: existe una escasez de profesores con sólidos conocimientos lingüísticos y pedagógicos, así como de métodos actualizados y adaptados a la diversidad de los alumnos y a las grandes diferencias entre contextos de aprendizaje.

Despite myriad changes to language teaching methods over time, university-level classroom spaces have largely remained the same-until now. Recent innovations in classroom space design center on technological advances, include movable furniture and coffee-shop style rooms, and are believed to facilitate language learning in several ways. Specifically, compared to traditional classrooms, innovative spaces are designed in hopes of decreasing pre-task setup , increasing student-centered interaction, and facilitating collaborative work with multiple partners-features believed to be important for classroom learning. However, whether or not these features are present in these innovative spaces, or more so than in traditional classrooms, has yet to be tested empirically. This study set out to compare student interaction and the use of space in traditional and innovative classrooms, examining the presence of the aforementioned features. Data collected from university Spanish language and linguistic courses demonstrate that while some differences in use of space and interaction were observed when lessons in traditional and innovative classrooms were compared, notable differences were only present when the instructor was teaching all sections of a course in an innovative classroom and had adapted his/her lesson plans accordingly. Implications for language teaching, instructed language acquisition, and classroom space design are discussed. Keywords: instructed SLA/ enseñanza de segundas lenguas en contextos formales; language learning context/ contexto de aprendizaje de lenguas; classroom language learning/ aprendizaje de lenguas en el salón de clase; classroom space design/ diseño del espacio de instrucción; teaching with technology/ enseñar con tecnología <sh1>Introduction While language teaching methods and approaches have changed over time, often in relation to research findings in second language acquisition (SLA), the physical university-level classroom spaces in which language teaching and learning occur have largely remained the same. Recently, classroom space design has entered into the conversation of how to maximize language-learning opportunities, and universities are adding classrooms designed around technology and with nontraditional organization. Much like other technology-focused initiatives in language learning (e.g., computerbased interactive tasks and hybrid courses), these newer classrooms are believed to promote student-centered learning and to capitalize on student preferences and modern lifestyles (360steelcase 2010a). However, unlike research on other technology-focused initiatives like computer-assisted language learning, which has compared student interaction in computermediated and face-to-face environments extensively (e.g., Blake 2013), when it comes to classroom design, little research exists that compares the use of these newly implemented, innovative classrooms with traditional classrooms. Although it is assumed that these innovative spaces will enhance learning opportunities in a variety of ways-by decreasing pre-task and administrative set up, facilitating student-centered lessons, equalizing participation, and allowing students to work with more classmates than they would in traditional classrooms-these hypotheses have yet to be tested empirically in a foreign language setting. This study serves as a first step in investigating the presence of features believed to be beneficial for language learning in these new spaces and compares the presence of these features in traditional versus two types of innovative classrooms: one with nodal (moveable) chairs and one with a coffee-shop style collaboration café design. <sh1>Features Important in Classroom Language Learning Language teaching methodology has become increasingly student-centered in past decades (cf. Richards and Rogers 2014), and for good reason. First, when students are involved in language tasks, it is more likely that they are cognitively engaged and able to pay attention to both meaning and form. Learners' attention and cognitive engagement is seen as critical for language learning, as it allows learners to focus on new information and to solidify formmeaning connections (Schmidt 1990; Svalberg 2012). Learners' successful processing of feedback is also premised on their noticing the mismatch between their output and the target structure(s), their ability to hypothesize and utilize the feedback via interlanguage restructuring (Long 1996), and their motivation to produce additional output (Swain 2005). Having students interact with different interlocutors (i.e., communication partners) is also believed to facilitate learning. Working with multiple partners exposes learners to more varied input, opportunities for interaction and output, and feedback, components believed to be critical for language learning (Gass 1997; Gass and Mackey 2006; Long 1996). Third, given the limited amount of time students have with the target language in a classroom setting, getting students to interact as much as possible is seen as critical. While the pre-task, or setup , stage is important for students to understand what is being asked of them, activate their prior knowledge, and have an opportunity to ask questions, modern teaching approaches place a premium on maximizing its efficiency and moving students on to the interactive, 'during-task' phase (Ellis 2003; 2009). Newer, innovative spaces claim to reduce task setup by engaging attention and facilitating quicker ease of movement into the task. Finally, in recent years, researchers have devoted increased attention to the contextual and environmental factors that may also play a role in foreign language learning, (e.g., Collentine and Freed 2004; Housen et al. 2011; Norris and Ortega 2001). The next section provides an overview of two topics that have dominated research on the role of learning context in second language (L2) acquisition: (a) comparisons between place of study, such as study abroad and athome environments, or traditional and online environments, and (b) examining within-classroom adjustments, such as the use of technology and space design. <sh1>Contextual Factors in Language Learning <sh2>Context of Learning Research exploring the role of context has identified factors such as time abroad to have a positive effect on L2 learning, particularly in relation to the development of L2 fluency and pragmatic competence (e.g., Freed 1995; Shively 2008). Results comparing study abroad and athome environments for morphosyntactic and phonological development, in contrast, have been less conclusive (e.g., Collentine 2004; Díaz-Campos 2004). This overall pattern is consistent with the observation that study abroad affords more opportunities for use of the L2 in the surrounding social environment, which is best characterized as a communicative rather than a learning context, i.e., settings where input, output, and feedback draw attention to linguistic forms (Collentine 2009).

This study investigates the nature of grammatical gender knowledge of adult native English speakers (N = 24) learning Spanish as a second language (L2) in the instructed context and contributes to the analysis of the role that metacognition plays in adult L2 acquisition of a morphosyntactic phenomenon not instantiated in L1 (English). This study seeks both to corroborate abundant previous research on the linguistic variables of grammatical gender (e.g. Spino-Seijas, 2017; Foote, 2015; Alarcón, 2011; Montrul et al., 2008) and to examine metacognition as a new learner variable not analyzed in previous studies. Furthermore, this study introduces a tool for measuring metacognitive awareness in L2 learning through a language-oriented adaptation of the original Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) (Schraw & Dennison, 1994). Metacognitive awareness can be defined as the ability to reflect upon, understand and control one’s learning process (Schraw & Dennison, 1994). In order to examine how L2 learners process grammatical gender, the influence of four independent binary variables is analyzed in both a written recognition task and an oral picture description task: gender class (masculine or feminine), domain of agreement (determiner, adjective), noun morphology (overt or non-overt gender marking), and task modality (written or oral). Results indicate the following decreasing order in effect size of each binary variable analyzed (p < .001): morphological markedness (d = 2.16) > task modality (d = 2.10) > gender class (d = 1.7) > domain (d = -1.63). In addition, a moderate positive correlation (r = .34, p = .052) is observed in the dataset between metacognitive awareness scores and gender accuracy. Results further demonstrate the particular role of metacognition in adult L2 learning as a factor more strongly associated (r = .33, p = .059) with offline, explicit processing of language, during a written recognition task, than with online/spontaneous production (r = .28, p = .095), during an oral description task. Furthermore, metacognitive awareness appears to modulate accuracy with grammatical gender of those forms which are most difficult to acquire: feminine nouns, non-overtly marked nouns, and determiner agreement. Therefore, metacognition appears to be an important skill worth developing in adult L2 instruction as it may lead to specific proficiency gains in problematic areas of morphosyntax.

One of the main issues in teaching the acquisition of complex language structures to students of a foreign language is what is known as language interference, language transfer, or cross-linguistic influence (CLI). While there is not a consensus amongst researchers on a specific, short definition of what this phenomenon is, there is a certain agreement on what it entails.
According to Théophanous (140), two main categories of mistakes which are generally treated separately can be traditionally made out in L2:
a. Interlingual mistakes, attributable exclusively to interferences of the mother tongue (L1)
(or of another tongue known by the learner) in learning the target language, and studied by
means of contrastive analysis.
b. Intralingual mistakes, attributable to the intrinsic characteristics of the L2, which can also
affect children who are learning their L1.
This categorization seems mostly reasonable, except for the fact that Théophanous places (in parentheses, in a.) mistakes caused by the phenomenon of cross-linguistic interference in third language acquisition under the same category of mistakes as those caused by the phenomenon of CLI in L2 acquisition. Grosjean, Cook and Jessner have stated -separately- (qtd. in Cenoz, Hufeisen and Jessner) that
... from a psycholinguistic perspective, third language acquisition research presents specific characteristics derived from the fact that third language learners are experienced learners and also because bilingual and multilingual individuals present a different type of competence as compared tothat of monolinguals
This disagreement is an instance of the lack of consistency in the literature concerning CLI; in general, there is relatively little written on the subject regarding monolinguals learning a L2, or bilinguals learning a third language. Authors seem content to put learners of a foreign language together in one group, regardless of their background in terms of their total or partial knowledge of other languages. The present paper deals mostly with Théophanous’ first proposed category above, without taking into account any other language known by the learner, since the majority of subjects whose examples are used in this paper were monolingual English speakers. In particular, I will attempt to show the issue of CLI in learning one very specific structure, the present subjunctive mood, by first and second-year monolingual college students in the United States who are mostly native English speakers. Students who take lower-division Spanish courses include often a few heritage speakers of Spanish who use English as L1; however, I did not use examples produced by anyone in this latter group to illustrate my point, since they belong to Théophanous’ second proposed category above. I will try to make a case through the presentation, classification and analysis of several examples of written and spoken language collected throughout my almost eight years of experience as a first and second-year college Spanish instructor. Some ways of bringing this issue to the student's attention based on the concepts covered by Doughty and William's Focus on Form in Classroom Second Language Acquisition will be suggested towards the end, as a way to suggest a change in the current teaching paradigm in order to make the acquisition process of this structure more effective.
Regarding L3 CLI, it needs to be clarified that the issue of heritage speakers who as young children produced structures atypical of monolingual children of the same age, and which sounded as if they were coming from the child's other language (an issue to which Döpke refers below) is more related to the subject of simultaneously bilingual children (SBC), in spite of the fact that these heritage speakers rarely consider themselves bilingual, so they, in general, cannot be considered SBC (and hence they end up frequently in lower-division Spanish classes). This means that I consider the production of structures showing CLI by heritage speakers to be the subject of a different research altogether.

This study investigates how different ways of receiving peer written corrective feedback (WCF) affect learners’ opportunities to actively engage in negotiation of form in tandem virtual encounters. Two types of WCF are compared, namely direct WCF plus oral metalinguistic explanation and indirect WCF plus oral prompt. During a telecollaboration programme between Italian students of English and US students of Italian, the participants (n = 16) were given several tasks to complete in dyads, including that of providing feedback on written compositions produced by their partner in the target language. The eight dyads were divided into two groups which received the same instructions for the activities, with the exception of instructions on how to provide WCF to their partner. The data of six dyads – three from each group – were analysed with regard to the quality of language-related episodes. The data analysis showed that indirect WCF plus oral prompt was more effective in leading the NNS...

The extent to which learners benefit from instruction may be largely dependent on their individual abilities. However, there is relatively little work on the interaction between instructional effectiveness in second language learning and learner individual factors. In this study, we investigated the relationship between instruction, individual differences in cognitive abilities (working memory and declarative memory), and second language vocabulary acquisition in the context of web-based intelligent computer assisted language learning (ICALL). To this end, 127 adult learners of English, predominantly advanced-level, German-speaking learners, read news texts on the web for about two weeks using an ICALL system under two instructional conditions: form-focused and meaning-focused instruction. Learners in the form-focused condition read and completed automatically-generated multiple-choice gaps where phrasal verbs appeared in the text, while learners in the meaning-focused condition sim...

Instructed Second Language Acquisition welcomes the submission of papers for Issue 3(1), to be published in May 2019. Researchers are invited to submit their manuscripts by September 15, 2018. Please follow the submission guidelines on ISLA website (https://journals.equinoxpub.com/index.php/ISLA/index) and do not hesitate to contact us for any questions.

Only a few characteristics of picture-based narrative prompts have been studied to determine what features affect task performance. Thus, it is not easy to identify equivalent narrative prompts or identify features that are impactful. Tavakoli and Foster (2008) and Tavakoli (2009) examined the impact of prompt on the language produced by English learners during a picture-based narrative task in respect to narrative structure and storyline complexity. This study investigates if prompts within these known categories elicit similar performance. Considering the findings based on different prompts in Tavakoli and Foster, as well as in Robinson’s (2011) Triadic Componential Framework for pedagogical tasks, we added another feature, number of elements. All of the prompts in this study had a tight sequential structure (±causal reasoning), similar storyline complexity (±intentional reasoning), and similar main characters and props (±elements). Although the accuracy and complexity in the ESL ...

Linguistic input is considered one of the most important prerequisites for the acquisition of a foreign language. In recent decades, theoretical approaches within a cognitive-interactionist framework (Long, 2015) have identified various aspects of L2 input and characteristics of instruction that predict learners’ L2 outcomes. Teaching principles relate (1) to characteristics of communicative activities in which the L2 is embedded and encountered by the learners, and (2) to the quality of L2 input, L2 interactions and learners’ L2 output (Ellis & Shintani, 2014). They are in line with task-based and content-based L2 teaching approaches. This chapter starts out with the theoretical underpinnings to L2 instructional principles (Gass et al., 2020, Kormos, 2011, Leow, 2015, Truscott & Sharwood Smith, 2019). Based on two graphical illustrations on characteristics and processes in ISLA and internal knowledge construction, it introduces the roles of sensory input and individual perception, ...

In questo contributo intendiamo mostrare come un corpus raccolto a scopo di ricerca su aspetti pragmatici dell’italiano possa rappresentare una risorsa interessante anche per l’insegnamento della lingua a stranieri. Il corpus su cui si basa il lavoro proviene da un progetto di pragmatica transculturale dedicato all’atto linguistico del rifiuto a un invito. Nel contributo si analizza, in particolare, il modo in cui gli italiani sono soliti disdire un impegno preso in precedenza accettando un invito. L’analisi del campione di dati offre diversi spunti interessanti per una descrizione della disdetta in italiano, utile per chi volesse fare oggetto di riflessione esplicita questo atto linguistico con apprendenti di L2. In concreto, si presentano gli schemi piu frequenti per la realizzazione di una disdetta, il tipo di modificatori usati e la variazione legata alla distanza sociale tra chi disdice e il destinatario della disdetta. Cancelling an appointment: ideas for italian L2 teaching b...

The study investigates questions central to the field of second language (L2) acquisition and instruction: Does the first language (L1) influence the L2 grammar? Can wrong patterns be restructured? Is Universal Grammar accessible during L2 acquisition? And can L2 acquisition, rather than learning (in Krashen’s sense), be triggered by explicit positive evidence (EPE), combining input flood with explicit emphasis upon target forms? Three properties associated with the Null Subject Parameter were inspected in two sixth-grade groups (L1-Hebrew, L2-English): thematic subject omission, expletive subject omission, and post-verbal subjects. During teaching, both groups were exposed to input flood of expletive subjects, but only in one group were expletives explicitly emphasized (EPE). A Hebrew-toEnglish translation-choice task tested the abovementioned properties pre-teaching, immediately post-teaching, and four months post-teaching. Shortly after teaching, the group which was explicitly ta...

Absolute beginners rapidly solve several word learning problems after minimal exposure to second language speech. In this article, we report on laboratory research that supports this claim. Explaining second language acquisition is a goal of foundational research. While our findings are consistent with the generativist enterprise, generativists have been content to describe what learnershave acquired while avoiding discussion of the 'how'. We describe a specific generativist approach (the Autonomous Induction Theory) that directly addresses the role of specific learning mechanisms proposed by cognitive psychology. In contrast to alternative non-generative approaches, the Autonomous Induction Theory offers a constrained theory of language acquisition. Both the data from laboratory settings and the theoretical explanations of how adult learners learn have potential implications for language teaching. One should not, however, make teaching recommendations directly from laboratory results. Rather, the findings should be reinterpreted as a research agenda for the classroom, one that recognises its complexities. In this paper, we make several proposals as to how to get from laboratory findings to a classroom-based research agenda.