Volume 12, Issue 2

The following paper aims at analysing co-constructing devices used in adult-child narrative interaction both in the first and in the second language. In order to build a “common ground” for communication and comprehension, adult speakers often need to rely on supporting strategies that provide the child with narrative, grammatical and lexical help. When investigating speakers in multilingual settings, these devices become even more crucial. The present study is based on a corpus which contains data from six multilingual children at preschool age from the Ladin valleys in South Tyrol. The analysis outlines both the adults’ devices used to support the child as well as the children’s self-adopted strategies to enable the interaction to be performed. As far as the adult part is concerned, the focus is put on initiating, replying and expanding devices. Children’s devices, instead, are mainly influenced by the multilingual setting they are involved in. In this sense code-mixing and code-switching phenomena emerge as main strategies.

This study aims at contributing to the field of multilingual writing and providing evidence for Cummins’ Common Underlying Proficiency Hypothesis (CUP) through analysing trilingual writing among secondary education students enrolled in a Basque immersion program. The main objective of the present study is to explore the relationships between participants’ compositions in their three languages of schooling (Basque, Spanish and English). A trilingual corpus of argumentative scientific writing essays was collected from a sample of 113 secondary education students. The texts were analysed with MultiAzterTest to retrieve complexity, accuracy and fluency measures. Correlational analyses were performed to explore correlations of each measure across languages, and low-moderate correlations were found between most measures and their counterparts. Specifically, accuracy and fluency measures showed stronger between-language relationships, which were especially salient between Basque and Spanish. Findings suggest that multilingual learners exhibit similar across-language patterns in the writing process, thus supporting Cummins’ CUP. The emerging similarities have important implications for bi/multilingual education programs, as they might inform curriculum design and instruction to foster crosslinguistic transfer and metalinguistic multilingual awareness.

Research in second language acquisition has shown that vocabulary growth is beneficial for reading (Qian 1999, 2000), listening comprehension (Staehr 2009), and has a positive influence on writing and speaking performances (Johnson et al. 2016; Levelt 1995). Vocabulary learning is hence a central pillar in the second language classroom. The activities used to enable the acquisition of new vocabulary play a crucial role in the learners’ path to proficiency. In this regard, the textbooks used are important since they can largely influence what types of vocabulary activities are used by the teachers in the classroom (Allen 2008; Tavakoli and Wright 2020; Woodward 1989). Nation (2013) provides a useful framework to analyze such activities. He identifies four strands that should be used in a balanced way to provide students with a comprehensive variety of tools to learn and apply new vocabulary. This study explores to what extent the four strands of activities are present in mainstream textbooks of Italian as a Foreign Language. This study also bridges a gap in the literature, since little research on vocabulary instruction has been done on the textbooks used for languages other than English. The result of our analysis shows that the Italian textbooks mostly focus on vocabulary aspects such as form-meaning mapping and grammar, leaving less room for meaning focused input and output. Furthermore, no activities that aimed at fluency development were found.

Although the competent handling with passive is acquired before school entrance, its comprehension is considered to be challenging in school books. According to a corpus linguistic analysis, passive is more frequent in school books than in texts from leisure contexts. Moreover, the agent differs semantically depending on context: Human agents appear predominantly in all contexts, but the proportion of abstract systemic agents are significantly higher in school books for biology and chemistry than in school books for history or in texts from leisure contexts. Furthermore, a survey shows that students do not perceive the general use of passive as challenging, but those sentences with abstract systemic agents are assessed as more challenging than comparable sentences with human agents. This leads to the assumption that challenges in reception of school books arise neither only from grammatical structure nor from global linguistic functions. Semantical and functional differences from specific constructions are fundamental to locate potential language-based challenges in school books. Consequently, the joint reflection of concrete formal and functional aspects should be considered in the development of diagnostic instruments as well as in the operationalisation of the language of schooling. Furthermore, cross-linguistic comparisons can sensitise for conspicuous use of structures and support a language-sensitive teaching in both languages.

The present paper examines teenagers’ production and perception of spelling error corrections (e. g., *zij for zei ) in online messaging. It discusses both a quantitative and qualitative analysis of spelling corrections in a large corpus of private online conversations between Flemish adolescents and the results of an online survey with a similar target group. Our study reveals that teenagers hardly correct their own spelling errors and those of their peers in informal social media writing. Several factors play a role in whether or not they rectify an error, such as the type of error and their socio-demographic profile. In general, adolescents tend to have a negative attitude towards correcting other people’s spelling mistakes. Consequently, teenagers often perform this face-threatening act (FTA) to tease or irritate their interlocutor or by way of payback for another FTA. Strikingly, even in non-conflictual contexts, errors are generally pointed out quite bluntly, though in some cases, both the error-maker and the interlocutor engage in damage control when the error has been acknowledged by the former. By conducting this research, we can achieve a better understanding of the sociopragmatic mechanisms underlying error perception and error handling in a social media context that generally embraces nonstandard writing.

The aim of the study is to investigate foreign language teachers’ perspective on teaching older adults in the context of (glotto-)stereotypes about Polish third-agers. Thirty-seven lecturers, divided into two groups: one with and one without experience in teaching a foreign language to seniors, were examined. The survey study consisted of two stages based on 2 different research tools: online surveys and group interviews. Both individual responses from surveys and opinions expressed during group interviews were analyzed qualitatively with the use of a reflexive thematic analysis (TA) approach. The teachers responded to the questions regarding the following aspects: 1) seniors’ experiences in learning foreign languages; 2) older adults’ motivation, needs and expectations; 3) the role of the teacher; 4) didactic strategies. It turned out that the responses from the two groups did not differ a lot and in general the lecturers declared their willingness to work with late L2 learners. The influence of stereotypical thinking about seniors (based on the opinions of young Poles cited in the literature) on teachers who did not have experience working with this age group, was not as strong as presumed. None of the research groups’ members had had any formal education or training in teaching late L2 learners and, noteworthy, the attitudes and abilities of both teacher groups appeared to differ from the stereotypically held beliefs of Polish seniors. The comments from experienced teachers revealed their deeper awareness of seniors’ psychological needs, such as supporting them or giving positive feedback.

The objective of the article is the theoretical and practical analysis of the use of the semi-lexical word 1 ‘while’ by Polish (non-native) users of English representing different proficiency groups (B2-C2, in accordance with CEFR, which stands for Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) as well as by native users of English. The practical part of the article will be centred on the demonstration of the use of the afore-mentioned word based on the available corpus of L2 users (PELCRA – PLEC). The first acronym denotes Polish and English Language and Corpora for Research and Applications (PELCRA), which is the result of scientific work of the scholars from the University of Łódź. The other one (PLEC), stands for PELCRA English Learner Corpus (see the References section below). It is commonly known that learners/students find it difficult to use semi-lexical words properly, as they are differently realised in their native language. It is generally assumed that learners/students will demonstrate different strategies in the use of the word in question. The strategies selected by them will revolve around hesitations, overuse, avoidance, lack of decisions in the use of the above word . Hence such idea of the research occurred, the objective of which is to verify and demonstrate learners’/students’ performance with reference to the selected word, which is challenging depending on the available contexts.

The present study attempted to investigate the writing proficiency differences between the two groups of EFL and ESL writers considering the lexical, syntactic, and morphological complexity measures. Additionally, it aimed to disclose the association between writing proficiency and the utilization of the New General Service List (NGSL). To these ends, a corpus of 1331 argumentative essays accumulated from EFL and ESL writers on a single topic was examined. The findings of the analysis in the measures of linguistic complexity showed that the writings of the ESL group scored slightly higher than those of the EFL group in every corresponding sub-construct; that is, ESL writers were found moderately more proficient than EFL writers concerning the lexical, syntactic, and morphological complexity of their writings. However, the outcomes showed that EFL writers utilized more NGSL words in their essays, leading to the consideration that NGSL use may be negatively associated with proficiency levels. Hence, contextual diversity leads to distinct levels of proficiency, and lexical coverage can be considered a great indicator of writing skill and quality.

Previous research on the perception of second-language speech has suggested that non-native listeners may benefit from sharing the speakers’ first language, e. g. speakers of Spanish find Spanish-accented English easy to understand. In the present study, L2 English speech samples elicited from L1 Finnish and L1 Finland-Swedish speakers were rated for comprehensibility and accentedness by English-speaking listeners and the speakers’ peers, seeking to explore whether there is a difference between the listener groups. In addition, the speakers’ overall spoken proficiency (A2, B1, B2 on the CEFR scale) was considered in the analysis to find out if the possible shared L1 effect is connected to the speakers’ proficiency. The results were mixed, finding that L1 Finland-Swedish listeners were more lenient towards their peers’ English than the English-speaking listeners were, whereas L1 Finnish listeners gave comprehensibility ratings equal to those given by English-speaking listeners, and accentedness ratings that were stricter. The finding supports earlier suggestions on the effects of sharing the speakers’ L1 for L2 speech perception being L1 dependent. As for the influence of the speakers’ proficiency, the results demonstrate a greater difference between English-speaking listeners and listeners who share the speakers’ L1 regarding low-proficiency speakers.

Several researchers have drawn attention to the educational challenge posed by multilingual classes where students from different linguistic backgrounds coexist. Current institutional initiatives in Europe, but also elsewhere, advocate for the maintenance and promotion of multilingual and multicultural diversity within both monolingual and multilingual classrooms. In this study located in Spain, we were interested in exploring the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) vocabulary production and FL categorization of a group of heritage bilinguals in comparison with their mainstream monolingual peers. Results from a categorization task revealed that on most measures taken, heritage bilinguals, despite being a more heterogenous group, performed similarly in terms of vocabulary production in general, and as compared against the framework of a standard pre-B1 Cambridge vocabulary list, FL categorization, and typicality structures. The levelling effect of the EFL class is claimed to be accountable for this lack of differences. Furthermore, we dare speculate the generalization of CLIL could play in favour of more inclusive classes where immigrant learners are not left behind and can realise their potential to the fullest.