Volume 53, Issue 1

This study investigates the lifespan development of the ability to correctly guess the meaning of foreign-language words with known translation-equivalent cognates. It also aims to identify the cognitive and linguistic factors driving this development. To this end, 159 German-speaking Swiss participants aged 10 to 86 were asked to translate 45 written and 45 spoken isolated Swedish words with German, English or French cognates. In addition, they were administered an English language test, a German vocabulary test as well as fluid intelligence and working memory tests. Cognate guessing skills were found to improve into young adulthood, but whereas they show additional increases in the written modality throughout adulthood, they start to decrease from age 50 onwards for spoken stimuli. Congruently with these findings, L1 vocabulary knowledge is a stronger predictor of written cognate guessing success, whereas fluid intelligence is the most important predictor in the spoken modality. Raw data and computer code used for the analyses are freely available online.

Contemporary views of adult pronunciation instruction emphasize the development of intelligible speech using empirically-validated pedagogical principles. Because learners typically have limited time for pronunciation work, instruction should be provided in a way that maximizes the use of the available opportunities. However, achievement of such a goal entails applying detailed knowledge of the phonetic learning process with due attention to the nature of differences that arise among learners, whether they share or do not share the same native language. In this longitudinal investigation, we examined productions of consonants and consonant clusters in English learners from two language backgrounds over a two-year period. Extensive between- and within-group variability was observed, with some targets produced very well at the outset, and others improving over time. The results argue against a common curriculum for learners. Instead, pronunciation instruction that focuses on individual learners' needs is called for. The findings are discussed in terms of strategies that might be used to develop effective and efficient pedagogical practices.

Promoting self-discovery appears to be a general relevancy oriented to by participants not only in ordinary conversation (Schegloff et al., 1977) but also in various sorts of institutional encounters (e.g., Edwards & Stokoe, 2007). The push for self-repair, for example, is considered an important learning activity which may be inhibited or retarded by other-repair (van Lier, 1988; Ohta, 2000). The aim of this paper is to investigate the complexities of the practices utilized to accomplish promoting self-discovery in the language classroom. Based on a conversation analytic account of 30 hours of audio and video-recorded adult ESL (English as a Second Language) lessons, I show two ways in which promoting self-discovery may become problematic in its implementation. I argue that language instructors need to be sensitized to the delicate balance between promoting self-discovery and providing interactionally contingent help.